book worm / Miss Rumphius

I make a semi-regular point to read Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. For three years when I was quite young, my family lived way up the coast in "down east Maine." The small fishing town where my father was a minister was a different world, but we were "adopted" by a few families who helped make it feel a little less foreign. Among them was an older couple the age of my grandparents. Whenever "Grandma Luraine" babysat me, she would always read Miss Rumphius aloud.

The further I get from that memory, the more I realize how much of Miss Rumphius I took to heart. In it, a little girl named Alice longs to travel to faraway places and eventually live in a house by the sea. But that is not all she must do, her grandfather reminds her: she must also do something to make the world more beautiful.

Over two decades later I realize I took this as my calling- a responsibility to travel and learn, to make a home, and to do good. Just like Alice, I long to fulfill my purpose, whatever that may be.

Have you read it? Do you have stories from your childhood you still treasure?