To Have a Book

I don’t own a TV – having given the giant flatscreen to AmVet years ago.  But I don’t know what I’d do without my books. Remember the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? It was set in a dystopian future in which firefighters intentionally burn any house in which a book was located because it’s illegal to possess them. Ultimately, a fireman who secretly grew to love books escapes the city of big screen, reality-based entertainment to find a small group of book-loving refugees banded together. Each person was assigned to memorize one complete book—including Plato, Dickens, James Joyce, and more—so the books would survive until society was ready to possess them again. I loved that book when I was in high school. I did not read many popular novels, though I had a rather large collection of classic literature while growing up. When my grade school classmates were reading and loving their mysteries or the Captain Underpants series, I was reading Jane Eyre and Henry David Thoreau, and a whole world beyond my quiet, hushed one at home opened up to me.

Reading is, for me, not just intellectual but physical. I love how the spine of a book feels in the crook of my fingers; the smooth, hard-end boards snug on either side of the pages sewn together, their edges flush and perfect. I totally lose track of time when I read. I read somewhere that time, as most of us think of it, is an illusion; the past, the present, and the future are here, now, captured in a touch, the blink of an eye, or perhaps, simply between two pages of a novel. Today, between two pages of a favorite book, I found a photo of Mom in her garden. Outside the window here now, a plant waits for spring, when it can spill forth its seed onto the soil. I remember days of working in the flowerbeds that my mom so lovingly maintained.

After her death, I kept it going as long as I could for my dad until he, too, was called away. As I toiled in the garden, the sun kissed the top of my head, the touch a benediction, a blessing.

I missed having a used bookstore a bicycle ride away, the owner having retired and closing it.  But there were often yard and garage sales here in the Village, and I could usually find old books for pocket change. The last time I was at a used bookstore, I found an old cookbook, two generations old, that I opened to browse and purchase. I could picture my Mom using a book like that, and it would look nice on the shelves with her books that remain in my house. In it was a dried flower carefully pressed within the pages so many years ago, a story untold within that small remembrance.

 I've many books like that old book, purchased from stores that contain more light than dust, containing within them things old and forgotten, things that in the wrong hands would only grow older. Finding the right one was like finding treasure. Fingers trace the spine, fingers that are gentle and forgiving, not wishing any further scarring upon that which binds. Such books find their way home, where they are pulled out to be read on late nights, the mind marveling that other minds marveled; the mysteries and the mistakes play out across the pages as if they were penned today. They tell their stories like some old and lonely shut-in would do to anyone willing to listen; lessons are given without rancor or heat. So many words need to be said while they can still be heard. I always make sure I have a book with me when I travel.

The last time I took a really long trip overseas, I had to downsize a bag as the little turboprop airplane piloted by who I believe was The Incredible Hulk was weight-restricted. My books were left behind for materials I had to have for the trip. Instead, I would have given up my lunch, poncho, and hiking boots instead of my little collection of paperbacks and a small leather-bound book of Shakespeare sonnets. Let the weather wreak havoc on my itinerary, let the grocers sell the last chocolate bar, but if I were to end up alone in the middle of nowhere after I bust a move down the Himalayas and break my leg, I wanted a book.

Curled up in strange places next to an artifact of the family that is toted around in my suitcase, I might be lonely, but I would be content. For I have a book. It’s a big old, paper-made, dead tree book. I want to hold something in my hand that feels alive to me, even if a living thing died to create its pages. Some words form pictures laid out upon a living thing that never slept, never dreamed of the soft perch of birds or the sharp blade of the ax, and never mourned the tender leaves that it nourished and abandoned. It’s a piece of wood that could be warmth, support, shelter, or the perfect, pristine bed of memory laid down bare.

My house is empty tonight, but I am not alone. In my head are history and the cries of warriors, rushing forth immortal beneath disported sabers and brandished flags, and men were rushing forward into time, propelled by gunpowder and righteousness, underneath a sky of thunder. I have a book. I am caught up in battles and loves, both forbidden and forgotten, coursing like blood as long as the words will—that immortal, fresh, abiding blood that bears respect above regret and commitment above the ease of dishonor.

My chores are going to be put aside for at least an hour or two before bed, and I’ll pick up a mug of hot tea and that book. I’ll let it transport me to somewhere far away until a chime will toll for warriors, for battles won and those so easily lost. As my hand turns the pages, I will move among people who lived and died, or perhaps never existed at all, their shadows not of flesh or blood but imagination, shadows as strong as finely-honed steel, and shadows as quiet as murmuring breath, forgotten until they were put upon paper. Then, upon hearing the sharp, clear, and quiet blade-like sound of that chime, perhaps a clock, perhaps something that just travels within me, I will fall off into sleep. The book lies prone on the nightstand next to me. The book and I are two forms, creating one shadow. The stories in both of us never cease, even at rest. Outside, the world continues in that illusion of change, the sky letting go of its tears, washing a parched landscape anew.