Bye, bye Borders

July 26th, 2011 by Regina Brett

It's still hard to believe Borders is closing.

 

I still miss Joseph-Beth and those cool door handles shaped like books. They always made it feel like you were opening a door into a world of books that could take you anywhere.

 

We're losing so many bookstores so fast. What is the future of the book?

 

We're talking about that on The Regina Brett Show this Wednesday at 7 p.m. on WKSU 89.7 FM. You can listen by podcast at www.wksu.org/regina

 

Readers are mourning and keep emailing me to share their grief. Michael Laughrin sent me a poem he wrote called Borders:

 

Temple,

School,

Social club,

Hunger fixer,

Heaven on Earth place

 

Happiness,

Joy,

Escape mode par excellence

 

Open magazines,

100,000 books,

Intellectual meeting place

Feeding place.

 

Home of:

 

Mind flying,

Soul exalted,

Tummy happy,

Sandwiches salted.

 

It is like a wondrous spaceship,

A starship par excellence

That carries me away,

Effortlessly,

To that place beyond

 

Where there is only wonder,

Openness,

Clarity

And Infinity.

 

 Thanks, Michael, for speaking for us all.

 

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The heat is on

July 22nd, 2011 by Regina Brett

My car did something it has never done before in my life.

 

Yesterday it showed the temperature outside was 101 degrees. Yikes!

 

Yes, we are Hot in Cleveland. Fortunately, we have air conditioning in the house. Unfortunately, we only have it in one room. The bedroom is our refuge. It's like stepping into an oven when you leave that sanctuary.

 

I still prefer the heat of summer over winter. There are a million and one things you can do to beat the heat, but the best one is to change your attitude about it. Take a look at the snow shovel in the garage. Put the snow brush next to you in the passenger seat as a friendly reminder of what will soon come.

 

Ah, it's not so bad after all. A temperature of 101 degrees? In celsius, it's a mere 38.3 degrees.

 

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Big yellow joy bucket

July 12th, 2011 by Regina Brett

I just finished reading Elizabeth Berg's "Once Upon A Time, There Was You." In it she talks about accidental moments of joy and urges, "Collect these joyberries wherever we find them and put them in our big yellow bucket."

 

What's in your big yellow bucket?

 

I love when readers share their joyberries. Ashley wrote: 

 

"This morning my family and I were heading to Dayton, Ohio to spend the day with my Aunt for the fourth of July. We stopped at a McDonalds to grab some breakfast and when we pulled around to the cashier to pay for our order she told us to have a blessed day and that the individual in the car ahead of us had paid for our meal.

 

This random act of kindness touched my heart in a way that is hard to explain. In a world where most people find it so hard to trust people, especially those we are not familiar with, it is nice to see that the love and kindness God shows us is still apparent within people.

 

I actually just finished reading your book God Never Blinks on my way back to Columbus this evening, and I just wanted to thank you for writing this piece. It was truly a blessing for me to read, and is something I look forward to passing around my family and friends.

 

I am twenty-one years old and will be a junior this fall in college. I am also a collegiate basketball player and have struggled with motivation not only to complete my college career as a basketball player, but also with my relationship with God. Luckily both are becoming much easier as I become more and more comfortable with the life God has given me. Your book has also aided me in my love for God, others, life, and myself.

 

Thank you very much, and I pray that God continues showering blessings through you and other's with the heart and passion for life and love."

 

Thank you, Ashley, for filling my bucket today.

 

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Welcome little Ainsley

July 8th, 2011 by Regina Brett

It was love at first sight.

 

For nine long months the gift is hidden. A masterpiece in the making. A unique mix of genes and blood and cells that will turn into the child that will steal our hearts away.

 

We welcomed her into the world at 7:02 a.m. all 7 pounds and 2 ounces of her. Petal soft skin. Sharp tiny fingernails no bigger than snowflakes. Eyes squeezed tight against the light and air and sounds of this brave new world.

 

Ainsley Veronica Sullivan.

 

We have loved you from the moment we heard you existed. Before we knew you were the girl in "It's a girl!" Before we felt your tiny hand wrap around our finger. Before you whimpered your first hello. Before you yawned and sighed and let your perfect pink mouth fall open as you slept in our arms.

 

A daughter. A sister. A granddaughter. A girl.

One day a woman. A bride. A mother. And anything, anything you want to become.

 

The world is yours and ours to share, to open wide.

 

We already have, starting with our hearts.

 

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Independence Day

July 3rd, 2011 by Regina Brett

Thank you, Thomas Jefferson, for writing the Declaration of Independence, which was signed on July 4, 1776:

 

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

I just love those words. And these: 

 

 "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

 

Would you have pledged as much?  God bless all those who did and do.

 

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