Books...

Hello again friends….

So the packing is largely over.

You would think…3X in a year…we should be pros!

I have gotten much better at throwing things out, and my husband has gotten more tolerant about my keepsakes.

And, there are a lot of books…

Why?

1. I am the last man standing, the last hold out for books.   I do not enjoy reading on a Kindle or Ipad …I have friends who swear by it, it is easier, just carry a tablet, not a book, no waiting at the library, nor for Amazon to deliver…just download it, and it is less expensive. 

2. Ever since cataract surgery, I have had a hard time settling into reading.

When I first had the surgery, I understood how they came up with the storyline for horror flicks where body parts belonged to someone else as my eyes did not feel like my own.  It took some time before they melded into “me” and “creepy” would be an understatement.

In reading patient comments on medicinenet.com for cataract surgeries, I should count myself a gold star success story as double vision, paralysis on one side of the face, dry-eyes, and a plethora of other symptoms are reported.

3. I do not read things immediately and I have books all over the house.  So I read 4 or 5 at a time depending on my mood and location v. within a time frame.

4. Part of my enjoyment of reading is sensory. The smell.  The feel of the paper.  The breaking of the binding.  How I enjoy dog earing sections to revisit later and underlining so I won’t forget.  Putting the book away and going back to it at leisure or as a reference later on.

5. Perhaps it comes down to your childhood?

Some people are sports brats:  Baseball brats. Soccer brats. Football brats. Golf brats. Tennis brats. There are Army brats. (Sometimes just brats!) Beach babies.  In Georgia where I lived for 34 years, people learn to hunt when they are knee high to a grasshopper.  Some people learn to race.  Others learn auto mechanics.  Engineering.  Dancing.  Hip hop.  Music. Etc.

I…am a library brat.  I grew up where there was a charming library by a duck pond.  My mother always took me to the library, she went upstairs to her section, I went down to mine…we would be there for hours.  Then we would feed the ducks.  My first library card…the very first BIG deal in my life!  Who cannot remember the pride in getting that first library card?  And to be able to take out your own library books! 

Then my mother went back to school for a 2^nd masters  and I went along with her.  First was always a stop at the library so I could sit and read my books in the student chairs while half listening to guidance, counseling, and psychology lectures.  I always say, I started out in grad school and went  from there to grade school! 

6. Books were, are, and will always be my friends, solace, entertainment, information, and solution to problems.  Books. Not a screen that I have to remember to charge…that I cannot have on for take off when I really want to be distracted in an airplane. 

Books, my childhood best friends, which bring comfort, joy and nostalgia into my life now with familiar titles on book bindings which make a house a home.  Books I read to my children each night growing up, books I still read and join book clubs for.  And yes, I am that person who bought the Franklin Mint Library of Classics in leatherette binding with gold embossing, proudly displaying them on my bookshelves.

7.  Laughably, I have a book in my car at all times, my “car book”.  No matter where we go, I have a book on hand when necessary.  I have this theory.  It has yet to let me down.  With all the doctor appointments I have, if I have a book with me and I am prepared to hunker down for the long run, my appointments never last long.  If however, I do not have a book, the appointments are interminably long, lasting hours!  Never fails!!

8. And while I considered myself progressive in the past…I can see how I am going to be a bit of a stodgy white elephant in the near future when technology will pass me by as my comfort level with it decreases.

Perhaps that is not so nifty but…there are worse things, so I embrace what I can and I move along as gracefully as possible!  Now that is the nifty over fifty theme!  Do what you can and do not apologize for what you cannot.

So I do not apologize for my love of books and my ongoing need for them. 

As we prepare to move into a new home, no doubt I will be given a limited space for my books and one day my husband will come home to me directing the books in a Disneyesque version of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice…trying to keep them contained to the cupboard as they create a Fantasia of their own as they burst out and perform a fantastic dance around and around around!  Just imagining the look upon my husband’s face…well, that is worth the image in and of itself!

Until next time!

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

Ernest Hemingway