November 29, 2002

• Deal.
  I've been sitting here, ruthlessly going through my books, deciding which to keep and which to sell.
  We are in a precarious position, with the sale of our house having fallen through, and so we are left with a Cratchit Christmas unless the money fairy appears. Which she won't.
  So - I am, as I said, hunched cross-legged on the floor, in front of two floor to ceiling bookcases that are crammed with books of every description, pulling out books at random, deciding what stays and what goes.
  It's difficult.
  Let me tell you about my relationship with books. I covet books the same way other women might covet jewellery, or the way some people covet cars or pieces of art.
  Doesn't matter if the book is a trashy best seller or a first edition, in good shape or in bad - if I haven't read it, then I want it.
  I regard bookshops in the same way people view porn shops - something full of temptation, a place where all my lustful thoughts come to bicker and haggle over the latest release.
  And there is nothing so self-satisfying to me as lugging home a sack or two bulging with new books. Because therein, begins the ritual of reading.
  I spread them out on the bed, and look at them.
  I organise them into size and then into cover art.
  Then I turn them all over and read the back or the flyleaf.
  I group them into genre - poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
  I group them into sub genres - women writers, mysteries, and slice of life stories.
  Then I organise them into initial reading order, from 'must read now' to 'when I get time'.
  And then, perverse creature that I am, I reorder the books so that I read some that I'd like to keep till later with the ones I am salivating over.
  So as not to ruin the anticipation.
  Given this addiction, it is no small wonder that every room in our house used to be crammed with books from floor to ceiling. But recent circumstances have necessitated the gradual reduction in sheer volume, until all that is left, are the treasured ones and the old friends, sitting in two bookcases in our family room. The ones that have made it through 4 turns of the scythe, but I can save them no more.
  I begin to choose.
  I pull out John Cheever, and touch the bright red cover of 'The Stories.'  I am on my 3rd copy of this book, and it has survived six moves and a travel across the world simply on the strength of the story called 'The Swimmer':
  "…He dove in, and swam the pool, but when he tried to haul himself up onto the curb he found that the strength in his arms and shoulders had gone, and he paddled to the ladder and climbed out.  Looking over his shoulder, he saw in the light from the bathhouse, a young man. Going out onto the dark lawn, he smelled chrysanthemums or marigolds - some stubborn autumnal fragrance - on the night as strong as gas. Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda and Cepheus and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer? He began to cry."
  Or this, from Norman McLean's 'A River Runs Through It':
  "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
  I am haunted by waters."
  I lean towards a book sticking out where I shoved hastily the night before when I'd been reading at 4am. Funny choice for a woman in crisis, this book - Anita Shreve's 'The Pilots' Wife':
  "She took her wedding ring from her finger and dropped it into the ocean. She knew that the divers would never find Jack, t hat he no longer existed.
  'You all right then?'
  The young fisherman leaned out of the wheelhouse, one hand on the wheel. His forehead was creased and he looked worried.
  She smiled briefly at him and nodded.
  To be relieved of love, she thought, was to give up a terrible burden."
  And lastly, I run my fingers over my poetry collection. There he is, Raymond Carver. The man who made me realise you could write importantly about unimportant things:
  All Her Life -
  I lay down for a nap. Bt every time I closed my eyes.
  Mare's tails passed slowly over the Strait.
  Toward Canada. And the waves. They rolled up on the beach
  And then back again. You know I don't dream.
  But last night I dreamt we were watching
  a burial at sea. At first I was astonished.
  And then filled with regret. But you
  Touched my arm and said, "No, its all right.
  She was very old, and he'd loved her all her life."

  
  

  These and some others, I will keep.  It is too big a loss to me to let them go. They have sustained me, enlightened me and filled me with wonder that words can have such power. They aren't pretty, they aren't bestsellers, they are simply everything that matters to me captured in ink and paper. The pages are yellowed and fall out when I turn them. They have coffee stains on the covers where I read while juggling breakfast for 3, they have dog-eared pages where they were hastily closed in response to a call from my child. They have notes in the margins, they have jam stuck pages, and they are curdled and rippled from being read in the bath.  I'e swatted insects with them on camping trips and the covers are tattered from being jammed in my purse between the sippy cup and the extra diaper. But they are old friends, old lovers and old memories, all bound together by the simply act of someone writing to be read. Of writing to be heard and understood.

  
  

  The others, with their bright covers, and clever reviews, can get boxed and sent to the bookstore. There, they will be looked over, and valued and haggled over. They are just books. Books to be exchanged for enough cash to buy a fairy wand, a dolly with real blue eyes that open and close, and a pink bicycle with streamers.
  It's a fair exchange.
  

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