First Love

Do you remember the first book you fell in love with; not just the story but the actual, physical, hold-it-in-your-hands book?
I suppose I was about six when I found mine.  It was in the jumble of odd toys my Grandma kept in a box in the back bedroom at her house.  It was a small book, probably 4x5 inches, bound in a medium green cloth cover (pea-green, I guess).  Inside was Edward Lear's story of The Owl and the Pussy-cat and I absolutely adored that little book.  The story was just so weird and crazy and exotic and delicious and filled with imagination and longing.  And I loved saying the words over and over; loving what they told, loving how they sounded, how they swayed on my tongue.
It felt amazing and private - that this whole world, this whole adventure was captured in this book, hidden between these tiny covers, available for me to experience at anytime.  Or to carry in my pocket or just hold in my hand.  It was my back of the wardrobe, my Oz-bound twister, my rabbit hole, my second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.
I don't know what happened to the book.  It isn't around anymore.  I've looked on eBay, thinking I would find it (not the same one but maybe same edition).  I found a small green edition, published in the 70's but not the elegant green cloth edition of my memory.  Maybe my memory is wrong.  I've collected other versions, good versions, but too big.  For Kate's first birthday, Mark finished a small wooden tea table and chairs for her and I painted a verse from The Owl and the Pussy-cat around the table's rim - the part about the runcible spoon.  Runcible is a word that Lear made up.  He loved it and used it in other pieces of his work; always as an adjective but with varying elusions of definition.  If you look it up now, you'll find a variety of weird definitions - some of them fit sometimes but never all the time.  Here's the story:

The Owl and the Pussy-cat

by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat:

They took some honey, and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,

What a wonderful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are,

What a wonderful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,

How charmingly sweet you sing!

Oh! let us be married; too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?"

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the bong-tree grows;

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?"  Said the Piggy, "I will."

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the turkey who lived on the hill.

They dined on mince and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.