As I sit here awaiting the moving guys…as I understand, after another half-sleepless night, that the hill has been halfway climbed…as I realize that this next stage of my life is just hours away…I look at the empty bookcases in the boxed-up living room and know that I am looking at a secret that has been concealed; one that waits again to be told.
Our bookshelves are the confessions of who we are. They tell our secrets. They nod to the stages, the loves, the obsessions of our lives.
I’ll bet that it’s the same for you: The books are the tours of us. There, the obsession with classical music. There, books on film. There, British mysteries. There, the tragedy that was the South Africa of apartheid. There, the truths of America. Novels. Science Fiction. Sherlock Holmes. Physics. African-American Fiction. Nabokov. Native American spirituality.
The snapshots of me.
When I moved away from NYC after so many years, I gave a lot of books away—a very difficult thing to do, at the time. A strange truth-telling, that. An unsettling admission. I had thought that as travelled from past to future, we traveled intact. I found that I was surrendering bits of my life that were no longer relevant to me. For a while, I felt as if this surrendering was a betrayal. Not so.
We change. We carry the molecules of those past selves with us always, even when the passion of the pursuit is gone.
Like a psychological Peeping Tom, I have always had a fascination with the bookshelves of others. Invite me over, and I’ll probably find a way to do that sort of emotional anthropology in front of your bookcase. They offer the snapshots of individual humanity that we get as we walk down a city street on a Sunday evening. Evidences of life in the lights, the movement, the glimpses of furniture. The canvas of existence in constant motion.
Our books are the ideas of others, writ in broad strokes, spoken quietly into our minds and thoughts and hearts. Who we are as we read each one is not the person we will be tomorrow. But it is an ingredient in the soup of ourselves—once there, it cannot be taken out.
Suddenly, there is comfort in knowing that, on this day in a changing life.
11 comments
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September 14, 2011 at 1:55 pm
cmmarcum
Next time get a Kindle, my dear. You won’t have to give up a thing. I too have been emptying my bookshelf, as my e-reader loads. Many of the classics are free. The makers of Kindle claims that it will hold 3000 books. Mind boggling that so much heavy ‘literature’ can be held in one hand.
And just when I bought it, I was thinking about yet another bookshelf. Now I don’t need that dust collector. The only books I buy now are gardening and survival manuals–‘cuz I need to look at the pictures. Kindle can reproduce a black and white, but nowhere near the detail that I want.
I’m even going to buy a small solar panel and converter, just in case the world goes to hell. Even though a 1/2 charge will run it for a month.
Sorry about blogging on your blog. I’ve learned that that is rude. I don’t understand it, but I usually try to comply–there are many etiquette rules that fly over my head. 🙂
non-paid spokesperson.
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September 14, 2011 at 2:01 pm
lynnbiederstadt
I’m thinkin’ about it…. 😉
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September 14, 2011 at 2:07 pm
lynnbiederstadt
Thanks for the product description. 😉 I am intrigued. I’ve been a little concerned about having to read with one eye out for the nearest electrical outlet, but that’s pretty impressive info there!
xo
lb
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September 14, 2011 at 1:58 pm
cmmarcum
Oops, I meant to say–a thirty minute charge will run it for a month with the Wifi turned off.
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September 14, 2011 at 3:14 pm
cmmarcum
To be clear on power consumption–I’m talking about the ebook with e-paper and e-ink–reading lamp still required–as it most resembles a sheet of ordinary paper.
I’m NOT talking about the colored monitors with built-in backlighting, which is more like a computer screen, not so easy on the eyes and undoubtedly takes a lot more power.
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September 14, 2011 at 11:44 pm
Anonymous
Another absolutely BEAUTIFUL meditation on the stuff of our lives, Lynn.
To the comment on Kindle: I think e-readers are handy for what I’d call disposable literature – magazines, nonfiction, perhaps even current fiction.
But a book… a real BOOK… is a totem, not a conveyor of “content.”
Recently my sisters and I had to go through the bookshelf of my father (professor of philosophy), who has fallen into dementia. Cracking open a book from the 19th century, one that has an ancestor’s living signature on it, is a revelation of the power of such things. Things that were once very valuable to a human being (or several). The same holds true for lesser books from lesser pasts.
I just think that a well-loved book carries the energy of desire of many within it.
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September 16, 2011 at 1:02 am
lynnbiederstadt
Thank you…although this comment came through as anonymous…I’d love to know who’s been so generous…
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September 15, 2011 at 4:11 am
C.B. Wentworth
Books are like family . . . they are just part of who we are and we couldn’t get rid of them even if we tried. 😉
Beautiful sentiment to the pages that define so much of who we are.
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September 16, 2011 at 1:03 am
lynnbiederstadt
The really ARE, aren’t they? I do get rid of some of them, though, I’m embarrassed to say….
-lb
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September 15, 2011 at 11:14 pm
Wild_Bill
My bookshelves are filled with writings of plants, wild animals, soils, geomorphology, fungi, geology, and ecology. Big surprise!
But, there is also Mowatt, JF Cooper, Hawkins, McPhee, and Dillard (and a few more nobody would recognize).
I guess I’m really no mystery.
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September 16, 2011 at 1:04 am
lynnbiederstadt
Not surprised by any of it, Bill. Your expansive knowledge is so clear from reading your posts….
-lb
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