Life and the Books I've Lived In

I am a lucky individual.

My life has been a beautiful mix of reality and fiction. I am an avid reader, and by my fourth year of high school I had read most of what the library had to offer. When I read, books cease to be pages with words, and become doorways to experiences that are often so real to me they become like a memory of a real experience.

Through books I have traveled the world, sailed the oceans, seen the vast reaches of space, lived in both abject poverty and incredible riches, felt the glory of magic at my fingertips and made some of my best and most loved friends. I have met such wonderful people: Socrates, Gandalf, Michelangelo, Jesus, Gorbachev, Morgana Le Faye, Anne Frank, Claire Beauchamp and Jamie Fraser, Erwin Rommel, and so many more. If I had never stepped foot outside my doorway I have lived a wonderful life through the books I have been lfortunate enough to read.

Lucky me, however, that my adventures that often began on those pages were painted onto the canvas of the life I wake to every day. I have served in the Navy, traveled most of the United States, visted Spain, Portugal and Mexico; I've lived in Sicily, been snow skiing in Santa Fe and water skiing in the Mediteranean Ocean. I have been a legislative advocate for veterans, and spoke to Legislative committees on their behalf. I went on a three month and fourteen state camping trip with my eighteen month and eight year old sons. I have been friends with great pianists, composers, writers, and politicians ... and met other people who I believe will someday be famous. I have a family that defies any fiction an author can concieve, and they give me more joy than I can put into words.

My every waking day is an adventure.

I will be forty years old in July. I wasted a great many years wishing I could do what I had read about, then I chose to allow what I read about to lead me and empower me to live the life I want to live. Books are a wonderful thing. No movie can compare.

The only thing that comes close to the glory of a good book, is the wonderful delight in living a story of your own.