So Many Books...

Once upon a time when I was young ... I hadn't yet developed a book addiction. Oh, I read books, of course. Voraciously.  But like a sane person, I went to the library to get my book fix. I would check out five or six at a time and take them home: smell them, fondle their covers, flip through them, and ponder them until I chose which one to actually begin reading first.  I'd read two or three of them maybe, then I'd return them all to the library and start the process over.  At that point in my life it had never occurred to me to buy books and bring them home forever.  I hadn't yet been introduced to the cause of my current addiction.

The first "real" book I remember purchasing (i.e. not a cheap paperback) was Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, in a new hardcover edition, sometime in the 80s. It felt so decadent to purchase a brand new hardback.  I pondered over the decision for hours, browsing around the bookstore, anxious to choose well.

Even then my addiction didn't kick into full gear for several years. I didn't feel right spending money on a book I would read once and then shelve. I had to have a special reason to buy a book, particularly a hardback book.  Even when I was in graduate school, I didn't amass many books. I dated a guy who worked in a used book store, and he would buy books all the time, books he didn't even have time to read. Books he'd already read. Books he didn't intend to read right away.  When I asked him why, he said he dreamed of someday having a library so well stocked with books that when he felt like reading something new, he could just go choose something from his own shelves.  At the time, I found that extravagant, peculiar, decadent.

Then my dear friend Charlie sent me a $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble for Christmas one year.

And that, my friends, was that.  They had me.

For the first time in my life I was able to go hog wild in the book store: snapping up not only books I felt a real commitment to, but books that looked interesting, books I liked the cover of, books I'd heard of but knew nothing about. I bought six or eight books in one rapturous day, and it was all over.

Since then I've bought new hardbacks and rumpled old paperbacks. I come to a screeching stop at garage sales featuring used books. I've joined no fewer than five book clubs. I have acquired so many books that by this time in my life I've actually been obliged to sell or give away several times as many books as I currently own, due to lack of space or inability to afford moving them all. I once actually, I'm not kidding, dropped off a huge box of books in the parking lot of a Walmart just to get rid of them.  I feel terrible about it now, as if I'd dumped a puppy in a sleet storm. But I had way more than I could house, and they were multiplying like gerbils.

I hate getting rid of books, but it's a necessity.  I sold or gave away some six or eight boxes of books before making the move to Arkansas a year and a half ago, and yet even so, I found it necessary to buy extra bookcases when I got here so that I could finally have a dedicated library space with floor to ceiling books all along one wall.  But already they are overflowing, with books stuffed in on top of books, books piled on the floor. In my bedroom there's a stack of new books two feet high on my bedside table.  There are three books on the dresser, ad two on the coffee table.

And there are so many more books on the way!  I just ordered a signed copy of Neil Gaiman's new book The Ocean at the End of the Lane, coming out in June. Robin Hobb's new Dragon Blood is due out in April.  The next in the "Fall of Giants" series is out in hardback now and it's all I can do to keep myself from buying it now and adding it to the stack. (I've sworn I'd wait for the trade paperback, at least)

Think of all the books!  All the worlds and stories and adventures waiting for me! I read hungrily, wanting simultaneously to savor the story and to hurry up and get to the next one. Sometimes I read several at once, alternating according to my mood, though I prefer not to do this. Sometimes I don't finish them, which to a book purist would be sacrilege, but I lose interest before I get to the end... there are so many others waiting in line!

Someday I hope to write and publish one... just one... just to be on someone else's reading list.  Wouldn't that be lovely?  Someday.  I hope.

Be True to Your Nature

I knew I needed to publish a more upbeat post hard on the heels of the last one, lest folks worry about me.  So here you go:

Monday, as I was walking to my car after work, I heard the tree frogs.  Yes, it's February.  I think they were Spring Peepers.  It might have been this Cajun Chorus frog, though.  Maybe both!  You can hear their calls (as well as the call of a bunch of other frogs) at this awesome Arkansas herpetology site:  http://www.herpsofarkansas.com/Frog/HomePage

I love the sound of tree frogs. Especially these that start so absurdly early in the year.  It's like a promise of spring to come.  And you just can't feel sad when you realize there are a million little frogs up in the trees, singing their little hearts out.  Even in the cold and damp, they just gotta sing!

If I was as true to my nature as these little frogs were to theirs, what would I be doing?  I like to think I'd be reading books, writing, planting things, playing with puppies and other small animals, making big pots of stew, walking in the forest, watching birds, snuggling, telling stories, sipping wine, listening to music, laughing, drinking coffee, helping turtles across the road, turning over rocks to look for salamanders, catching toads, smelling flowers, loving.

I should practice being true to my nature.

drowning

Lately it seems I've been sinking gradually into darkness.  I can't shake the feeling of exhaustion, of giving up, of giving in, of not giving a damn. I have a headache every day by about 2:00, and never any money, and all I want is to curl up small and read books, or worse, watch TV.

I'm getting tired of bailing. I'm tempted to just let the boat fill up with water and go down. Down down down into the dark, lovely quiet deep.

Sigh.

But I can't, of course.  I won't.  I'll keep bailing and paddling and trying to believe there's the hope of land just beyond the horizon. But it's hard to live life fully in the moment when you're constantly struggling just to keep your snout above the waterline.

Saturday I told myself I was going to make a day of quiet and stillness:  no worrying forward or obsessing backward, no doubt or self-recrimination, no fear.  I just focused on being here now and letting everything else go. I had middling success, but I admit that the shadows crowded around just out of my peripheral vision.  I'm all too aware they are there. They're the old familiar demons:  Money is the ringleader, of course, accompanied by its neurotic sibling Worry.  Doubt stands with a long face and slowly shakes its head.  Despair buries her face in her hands. Frustration stands and grinds its teeth:  they're ground away incessantly, but never get any shorter.  Yeah, the whole gang was there.

I fear that I am failing, and I can't throw it off, I can't get my head up high enough to see the light or breathe. I don't know what else to do, frankly. And just staying the course seems to just keep me in the same place.

Tonight I will read books, sleep, remain still.  Tomorrow might be better.