Book 19: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

I was shelving novels at the bookstore at O'Hare in 2011 when I first encountered this book. I'd never heard of it, I'd never heard of the author, but it felt like it was alive in my hands. Although we weren't allowed to read at work, I snuck it immediately. They didn't pay me enough for me to afford a copy where I worked, so I bought a cheap one at Half Price Books. When my partner and I went from the San Antonio airport to South Padre Island, then all through the Deep South up to Nashville in 2013 I read it out loud since I couldn't find an audiobook of it.

That cheap used copy fell apart, I loved it so much. Up until I moved to Austin a decade ago, I was obsessed with moving to the southwest. I thought that being in the hot desert would heal my PTSD (I was right), and until I was able to make that move books and artwork were my only options. I was so overjoyed after making it to Austin, I finally bought a copy of Ceremony that would be mine forever. After it sat on my shelf for a week, I knew I couldn't let it sit unnoticeable alongside all of my other books. So I decorated it: 
Someone had given me the Medicine Woman Tarot deck, which I cut up to collage in some of the pages. If I had to go back and do it again, I wouldn't have used that deck - but my decorations show where I was at the time. 

I still adore this book, it's deeply moving and woven together in a loving way. I've never regretted leaving Austin, but reading the descriptions of the aromas of the desert and finding dried flowers that grew there and can't grow here made me miss parts of it.  This was probably my six or seventh rereading of the book, and I will continue to reread it and cherish the healing desert that brought me to where I am.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/588234.Ceremony


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