book review: "A Parchment of Leaves"...

... by Silas House, same author I recently reported on here who wrote another book that was so readable I requested others from the library. In truth, I have not finished this one, but have found the people living on the pages so interesting I will give it my stamp of approval even though I have not completed the story.

About a woman named Vine, a full blood Cherokee who marries a man she falls in love with, Saul. They move to be near Saul's mother, and build a house, start a family. The following is a quote from Vine, as the story is written in various voices of the characters:

"Daylight is the time God moves about best. I've heard people say that they like to watch the world come awake. But the world is always awake; sunlight must makes it seeable. In that moment when the light hit the mountain, when the sun cracked through the sky big enough to make a noise if our ears could hear it, I would be aware again of all the things that had been going on throughout the night. Morning just made it easier to hear. Light takes away the muteness."

I thought of my mom when I read this talk of the earliest part of the day. My mom, the person who got up long before dawn and started her day. What ever it was that she had going on.  Drinking black coffee and getting things done. In her later years, after I was out of the house, and would return, my dad had put a timer on her coffee pot, so it would be ready for drinking as soon as she made her way to the kitchen.

I am sure the act of being up at four or five a.m., starting on a pot of caffeine was part of the reason she would be ready to go to bed so early. She was ready to crash by the time it got dark, partially due to having put in a full day before the world was even fully awake, getting her daily work done, taking care of business. And, of course, if you get up in the wee hours, by the time the sun has set, you have put in a full day, and ready to go to bed, creating a vicious cycle of odd sleep habits, like people with bodies that have adapted to reversed sleep cycles due to work requirements.

The House book is a sweet story of a woman who lived through hard times, peopled by families who had no choice but to make the best of their circumstances. Lives filled with primitive conditions, harsh realities, but they were people who could see the beauty in the world around them. Observing the changing of seasons as tiniest leaves began to show in the springtime, shady mountain hollows in the heat of summer, brilliance of autumn and bare deciduous tree forms and beauty of evergreens in winter.