“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen.
The man
who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
When I was a young girl (12 yrs. old) I lived across
a town highway and up a treacherous hill and down a main neighborhood road (i.e.
cars going 20mph above a restricted speed limit) from a new library. The summer between 6th and 7th
grade I would wake up, have a breakfast of Cheerios and look at the clock,
timing the long walk to the great escape that was the library. If you have ever read the book or seen the movie
Matilda…well…that pretty much sums it up.
“She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons:
because she loved to read.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides
I was not a nerd in the traditional sense…I was more of a
closet nerd...I still am. I was a very
isolated child in many ways; geographically we lived far from extended family
and personally my upbringing was wrought with a father that was a bit 'overwhelmed' we shall say, and a mother that fell into debilitating illness
sporadically. I had my little brother
who truly was the brightest star in the night that was the ordeal of my
childhood. Books were my escape, my life
lesson, my teachers, my friends, my hopes, my fears, my warnings, and my dreams. They still are.
My most beloved of books - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Featuring the highly visceral and resonating art of Gustave Dore
A life changing tale for sure - Thank you Mrs. Kaicher (English Teacher Supreme)
I gave this point a lot of thought after writing my Labor Day
post. My children mock me about my love
affair with libraries, but they do understand (because I have taught them) that
there are certain inalienable truths to the human being that you are and the
hand that you were dealt. And as long as
the coping skills of that hand do not harm you or others – so be it.
Seriously go get your ‘weird’ on, whatever that may be.
I could have been someone that raised earthworms, or a storm
chaser, or a fungus collector, instead, I became a lifelong secret mistress of
the library. By the 6th grade
I had pretty much learned the Dewey decimal system; it was like a fixed set of
stars with which to navigate by. I could be
anywhere and if I needed to look up a certain subject, I knew what aisle to head
for. The card catalog (remember those?)
was like a treasure trove for me. The
hushed voices within the walls of the library lent an almost monastic quality to my time there.
“The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too
much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
I remember being deeply disturbed in the fourth grade when I
discovered the story about the burning of the Library of Alexandria in
Egypt. The loss of records and culture stunned me. I glanced at my class mates in
alarm, they remained unaffected. (Closet
Nerd Sign #1.)
I remember being outraged at the concept of censorship in
high school. ‘The List’ of books that
many schools were secretly not allowed to carry fueled a private
investigation of my own schools' library to make sure we carried them. I found many of them had been ‘lost’ and
never replaced. Exasperated I addressed
this with the librarian. (Closet Nerd Sign #2.)
“Though I enjoy the occasional eBook from time to time, I will only
stop reading books printed on paper when they pry them from my cold, dead,
withered hands, and even then,
they will be hard pressed to take them from me.”
― H.L. Stephens
Now I am not one to negate the advancement of my
species. And I have downloaded the
kindle app on my laptop for school purposes.
But I must say, it pisses me off to no end that kindle books are cheaper
than the real thing. It’s like (for me) the
difference between a true friend and a virtual one. And I struggle with this, yes, struggle (Closet
Nerd Sign #3). I understand production costs, delivery costs, fuel costs, and
recycling issues etc. etc. – but GOOD GOD PEOPLE – THESE ARE BOOKS! WHAT ARE WE TO DO IF WE NEED TO JUMP START
HUMANITY ONE DAY?? (Closet Nerd Sign #4)
“Crisy you read so voraciously, why don’t you invest in a separate
kindle?”
“Look at all those books – how many trees had to die?”
Hmmm …consider this; how many ideas were launched with the
written circulated word? Books in secret? Books passed in hushed tones on back roads? Not bits of 'data' but Books - without an electronic footprint or record? (True freedom.) Books without an algorithm
tracing my preferences and feeding me info, pitching me goods and future purchases based on my
reading? DO NOT FEED ME, ALGORITHMS,
FOR I AM FULL! (Closet Nerd Sign #5)
I can read a book by candle light, I can smell the essence
of the page. I smell its ink and that slight acrid mildew when a good read has been
wintered over in a lake house, waiting to be rediscovered when the sun of
summer returns. I can take a book in the
pool, on a raft and should it get wet I can dry it and read it again. I can fall asleep as a book gently slides
from my hands, across my body like a lover, landing with a soft bump on my
carpet. I can throw a book (chemistry
text-very heavy -good for the aggression). I can hold a book, caress a book,
gift a book, underline, write in, and add notes to, quotes to, and exclamations
to a book. The list goes on and on. I can tear a page from a book, embed it in a
sealed bottle, drop it into the sea and have it wind up on distant shores, or
my own, after 100 years of bobbing about.
Try that with your electronic device.
I still have my first
copy of Gone With The Wind, The Catcher In The Rye, and Dante’s Inferno – all have
achieved shrine like status on my shelf.
I have an old Bible I grabbed at a yard sale with ornate gorgeous hand
writing documenting a family from the 1800’s, signed by the mother of the
daughter that received it upon her death.
Who gives a shit you may ask? I
do. (Closet Nerd Sign #6)
Am I old? Am I being
passed up by innovation? I think
not. I just know what books mean to me,
what pages do for me. I use my computer
and iPhone to read blogs, watch vlogs, and browse magazines. But when it comes down to the staples, the
basics, the brass tacks, my moral compass, everything that makes me human, and my own North Star?…Well…It’s a book for me, for sure,
every time. Always and forever. And that my friends is the greatest love story I've ever known.
“Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her
company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed,
you can
sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.”
― Helen Humphreys, Coventry
Namaste
