How Wendy Reads

I have been wanting to write down this brief journal entry for almost a year now. It' a short one, about a single little memory and impression regarding my friend Wendy*. We went to a "girl's jamboree" event with our daughters and their friend. We spent a couple of nights in a dorm room, her bed was next to mine. I was restless, fighting a cold and not sleeping well. I remember dozing off to sleep in the near dark of the room, watching Wendy, because I am a side sleeper. She was quietly laying on her back in the bed across from me. She had a large book, roughly the size of a three ring binder resting across the length of her stomach. The book was face up and open. Her fingers glided in gentle, flowing horizontal lines across the pages, her head resting on her pillow and her face toward the ceiling. As I recall her hands and arms moved with the fluid grace of a dance movement. She was reading in the dark as we all slept. I have never seen anything like that before and it was lovely to behold. I believe she was reading the book of Jeremiah, or another prophet.

Photo by Abigail Parker, used with permission.