Happiness is a warm keyboard=I live to and love to write

I’ve been lost in books this week as writers often are, the love of stories both fictional and nonfictional have been in my heart since childhood…so of course my idea of a luxurious week off is to gather books in a pile and binge read...taking me away and making me feel good….especially when travel is unavailable due to a very common disease called …fundsarelow…

My first day of vacation started with a trip to this amazing, maze like warehouse of used books called Chamberlin Bookmine, a truly fitting name for it too…It is a store you could seriously get lost in…Rows and rows of book shelves, in room after room of twisting passages that sometimes offshoot into small cubby holes...all filled with books…A bookphiles dream!

I was there on a mission…looking for one particular book...A book I had been thinking about re-reading…A book that was hysterically humorous and a tad naughty from the 1970’s entitled “Coffee, Tea or Me” written by two stewardesses.

I wanted to read it again and see if it was as joyfully funny as I remembered it so I was thrilled when I found it tucked away…as if just waiting for me… in the humor section of the store. Smiling wickedly, I grabbed it up and promptly wound my way back through the myriad of aisles and twisting rooms to the front of the store and to the checkout counter to buy it.

Soon, I was back home and tucked away in my favorite chair by the window, gleefully reading and recapturing the happy, silly feelings I’d had when I‘d first read it.

Suddenly, my dear sister, who was visiting us that week, and was reading her own treasured find decided she was going to search on the internet to find out what had happened to those two stewardesses since writing the book…I didn't think much about what she'd said as I was already lost in the ridiculously fun stories unfolding.

Well, I can tell you now that I wish she’d stayed in her own little book and left mine alone…when my sister walked back into the room and without preamble informed me...the book was in fact not written by the two named stewardesses and… as a matter of fact…it was not written by stewardesses at all…

Oh no! What did she mean?...I wanted to stop her next words - but it was too late I’d heard it all…The book had been written by a person who made it all up...there was no Trudy and Rachel - all those wickedly, silly stories had never happened.

My heart fell when I looked down at the comical cartoon on the book's cover...and my desire to continue reading it was waning…None of it was true?...All of it was made up?...I'd wanted to recapture the fun within it’s pages…but now my joy deflated, all happy bubbles busted…

Yes, the author… whoever he is…had written it well…and yes, I suppose the stories within are still funny… but the element of it having it all be real is what made it so much fun to read...Their stories brought you into the luxurious world of travel and into the sisterhood they belonged to...

That was what had drawn me in all those years ago…true reminiscences from a life spent in that era's luxury industry...and I suppose that was what made it titillating…

Now that aspect was gone for me and the book lost its appeal...not only its power to entertain me today, but it clouded my memory of reading it that first time as well…maybe revisting a teenage moment wasn't smart...I should have left it alone.

Seeing the happiness wash from my face, my sister was instantly sorry for her research…but I brushed it off saying, "It's fine," as I placed the book on my book shelf, relegating it to be part of my next donation to the Library.

I moved on to the next book on top of my little pile of vacation reading books.

 Expectations are a funny thing - I wanted to recapture a time...a moment I remembered happily...and I foolishly expected to feel just as I did then... but I should have understood...special memories are unique and best left alone...And I should have understood...There are new happy moments to be had...just over the next minute...just waiting for me....

C’est la vie!

Thanks for listening...

https://www.abctales.com/story/penny4athought/past-or-present-chapter-8