Where the Books Are

Books: the tradition of my people. Currently on my nightstand are the following:

Standing in the Light by Sharman Apt. Russell
This I Believe, a compilation of essays on people's personal philosophies
Three books by Anne Lamott; Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, and Grace (eventually)
Never Far From Home, stories from the radio pulpit, by Carl Scovel
The Barn at the End of the World by Mary Rose O' Reilley
The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larson
and last but certainly not least, Singing the Living Tradition, the UU hymnal which I always keep close by.
Oh, and also close by are four to five issues of New York magazine, one US Weekly (yes, I am currently bowing my head in shame), one Poetry Northwest, and an old New Yorker.

Two of these books I go back to time and time again, three of them I have recently finished reading, and the rest are all in the process of being read or haven't been started yet (since six of them were just purchased yesterday). In the top drawer of my nightstand are about fifteen to twenty more books, most of whom have been shoved in the drawer because I am out of room on my bookshelf in the living room and have nowhere else to store them. Books and I have a long and sordid history. I usually am either completely obsessed with them and devour them in multiple numbers at a time like some literary drug addict, every chapter and book completed the next hit, or I find myself in a complete state of boredom; nothing seemingly able to catch my attention for long. Its gotten harder as I get older to spend as much time with my nose in the pages as I used to because I always seem to fall asleep two pages into the damned thing no matter what it is I'm reading. In college I had two dreams for my life after graduation: one, to get a dog (preferably a golden retriever) and two, be able to read for pleasure again. I was so excited to find my way back to non-text books again that I'm pretty sure instead of going out to celebrate my graduation with friends and/or family, the night of, I could be found in bed, stacks of books of every genre piled up around me, a deep grin on my face, and a light shining down upon me from above; after five years I had returned to my own person heaven.

I was thinking the other day about tradition and about the things we carry on with us from generation to generation. Unfortunately, much of my family's traditions died right along with my mom several years ago and there's not much of anything in my life these days that I would consider a tradition, except perhaps reading. My favorite memories from my childhood are of bedtime. Not only did they included the coveted backrub, they included the reading of a story or chapter in a book. My favorites were Mother Goose and Grimm at an early age and later Ms. Rumphius and Anne of Green Gables. Of course when I was quite young my parents would read to me but as I got older the tables turned and I would read to them. I still love reading out loud and am always, desperately and usually in vein, looking for a reason to do so. I used to silently pray in class that the teacher would call on me to read aloud, making secret promises to the Universe do all my chores for one day without complaint or to finish my homework early if only I would be called upon to orate to the class. At home when I read aloud at bedtime my dad would fall asleep every damn night and I used to get so frustrated with him that I would shake him and yell at him for falling asleep and he would drowsily apologize and perk up only to get heavy eyelids again a few minutes later. Only now can I understand how it was so hard for him to keep his eyes open as I, at ripe old age of thirty suffer from the same affliction of being unable to keep my eyes open after work on many days. In any event, this patter of him falling asleep and me trying to keep him awake long enough to listen to me went on until I was a teenager and I can't really recall if I did much reading during my adolescent years or not; most of them I have tried to completely block from my memory for multiple reasons including but not limited to my brief addiction Hagen Das bars and susequent weight gain in the eighth grade, bad (no seriously, really bad) hair that decided it wanted to be curly all of a sudden during puberty, and well, all the other usual trauma and drama associated with being ages twelve through eighteen.

Growing up my house was a quiet one. I can't remember how old I was before we got a television and when we did, it was a small black and white one. Of course by the time my brother and I were both teenagers we each had a television in our bedroom, I think this was a tactic our parents, who probably beyond frustrated with our smart mouths and surly attitudes, used to rid us momentarily from their lives. But the years before that television was never a focus in my house and it's watching limited to something silly like an hour a week. I think Saturday mornings may have been the only time it was ever on. And in it's absence, we learned to love books and to grow big imaginations and keep ourselves entertained with hundreds of other creative and active endeavors. And at night, if I couldn't sleep I always knew where to find my parents; in the living room in their assigned seats (more on that in a minute) reading together in silence. Today, this to me feels like home. When I think about them sitting there by lamplight, the sun having gone down a few hours earlier, sitting in the chairs my mother had re-stuffed and re-upholstered herself with a striped maroon fabric, quietly being in the world together, I can feel everything in that moment as it was. It was safe and warm and well, it was as much home as I've ever known, as much home as I could drink up in one giant sip. You could always tell my dad's chair because the seat was permanently lower than my mom's and I remember my brother and I used to tease him endlessly about this (funny the things you think are funny at eight). Sometimes after dinner but before bedtime my parents would sit in their chairs and draw us pictures of clowns and my brother and I would lay at their feet in silence, intently focused on coloring in our clowns just right. And my parents would sit and read the newspaper or the New Yorker or whatever book they were working through, occasionally lifting their heads to say something to each other and then quickly going back to their reading. I crave this quiet comfort, this safety, this long lost feeling of home today unlike I crave much else in the world. I miss being able to hear my parents quiet conversation from their reading chairs from my bedroom as I lay newly tucked in at night. I miss, oh god, I'm gonna say it... I miss... simpler times.

I feel quite anxious on some days that I'm thirty and don't have children or a family of my own yet; I always thought and assumed I'd have a couple of kids by this age like my parents did. I stress out that I don't want to be having children at 35 and be too old and un-nimble when my kids want me to play with them. I don't want them to be embarrassed about having the mom with all the gray hair (although, my mom wasn't old when she had me and still had lots of gray hair which I was endlessly embarrassed about so maybe this shouldn't be a concern really). But when I think about parenthood really, I think in the end its not about gray hair or what I'm sure will be my tacky clothes that embarass them or our house or anything else that my children will think of fondly in their adult years about their childhood, its the traditions we will share together. I think about the traditions that I want to pass on to them, whomever they might be, and top amongst the is the love of books, or reading I suppose I should say. I don't really care what they enjoy to read, so long as they enjoy reading. I think having a child that didn't like to read would be worse to me than just about anything... and I'm sure now that I've said that aloud, I will probably have one that doesn't. Damn. Anyway, I can't wait for bedtime stories, and to spend Sunday's laying on the floor in front of the fireplace with them in the winter reading and to see which books are their favorite. I crave endlessly the comfort of that quiet and safe place where all is as it should be and I can't wait to provide the safety to my children of  knowing where to find me after bedtime if they can't sleep; sitting contently with the newspaper or a magazine or good book (and hopefully, a spouse!) in my assigned seat. Yes, there in the company of my books and my family I will have in at least one way, come full circle and found my way back home.

Namaste.