A Circle of Quiet (The Crosswicks Journals #1)

Synopsis

The book begins:

We are four generations under one roof this summer, from infant Charlotte to almost-ninety Great-grandmother. This is a situation which is getting rarer and rarer in this day and age when families are divided by large distances and small dwellings, Josephine and Alan and the babies come from England; Great-grandmother from the Deep South; Hugh and I and our younger children from New York; and our assorted "adopted" children from as far afield as Mexico and as close as across the road; all to be together in Crosswicks, our big, old-fashioned New England farmhouse.

It's an ancient house by American standards-well over two hundred years old. It still seems old to me, although Josephine and Alan, in Lincoln, live close by the oldest inhabited house in Europe, built in the eleven-hundreds.

When our children were little and we lived in Crosswicks year round, they liked to count things. They started to count the books, but stopped after they got to three thousand. They also counted beds, and figured that as long as all the double beds held two people, we could sleep twenty-one; that, of course, included the attic.

We are using the attic this summer, though we haven't yet slept twenty-one. A lot of the time it is twelve, and even more to feed. Cooking is the only part of housekeeping I manage with any grace; it's something like writing a book: you look in the refrigerator and see what's there, choose all the ingredients you need, and a few your husband thinks you don't need, and put them all together to concoct a dish.

Vacuum cleaners are simply something more for me to trip over; and a kitchen floor, no matter how grubby, looks better before I wax it. The sight of a meal's worth of dirty dishes, pots, and pans makes me want to run in the other direction.

Every so often I need out; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody-away from all these people I love most in the world-in order to regain a sense of proportion.

Copyright:

1971

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

251 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780374123741

Publisher:

N/A

Date of Addition:

05/11/08

Copyrighted By:

Madeleine L'Engle Franklin

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs

Submitted By:

Anonymous

Proofread By:

Lena

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.