As I age, the amount of “things” I love gets smaller and smaller, but the love grows deeper.
Books are definitely one of these “things.”
My love affair with books began when I was in fourth grade.
I had recently moved to a new town with my mom and (much older) sister after my parent’s divorce. To say that the rug got pulled out from under me would be both an accurate cliché and a giant understatement.
Up until this point, my family and I had lived in upper middle class homes and my mom was physically present at all times.
Just before the divorce, we had owned a large dude ranch where we hosted guests in cabins, fed them in a large dining hall (with the help of a white-hat wearing chef), and took them on trail rides on the 25 horses that lived in one of our two barns.
This is why I can so vividly remember the moment we arrived at our tiny new two-bedroom apartment where I would share a room with my mom (for the next several years).
At eight years old, I was handed a key and a 10-speed bike and told to be home by dark.
I can’t remember when or how I found the town library, but I do remember how absolutely perfect it was.
It lived in an historic two-story Victorian house with a huge tree that seemed to wrap its branches around it in an intimate embrace.
The tarnished brass doorknob creaked as you turned it and the worn wood floors continued the conversation when you stepped inside.
If she was at her checkout counter, the elderly librarian would smile at you as you quietly entered her domain.
On the left was the children’s section with a red rug, low table, several plastic school chairs, and U-shaped double rows of book-filled shelves.
The rest of the first floor had floor-to-ceiling shelves with “grown-up” books. There were more on the second floor, which you reached by climbing the steep (creaky) wooden stairs.
It didn’t take me long to grow bored with the children’s section and wander over to the tall shelves where I was only tall enough to see the three bottom rows, four if the foot stool was around.
I remember walking up to the checkout counter that first day I wandered and sliding the book I chose to the librarian.
She looked at me, then the book, and back at me again. “Wouldn’t you rather find an easier book from the children’s section?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “I’d like this one.”
Now that I’m “elderly,” I can only imagine what that librarian must have been thinking as she looked at the tiny girl peeping over her counter checking out a 600+ page autobiography of Sammy Davis Jr. 😂
Although I can’t remember why I chose it or much about it, I’m pretty certain that I finished it!
This was definitely not a typical book for my precocious primary school self.
I remember feeling like I had a real friend when I read Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?.
And, experiencing such wonder and adventure on the pages of A Wrinkle in Time, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Hobbit.
I made a mental note to read Watership Down again when I was older and could understand all of the social and political symbolism that I knew I was missing.
In high school, I savored Gone With the Wind and The Godfather.
University left me no time to read for pleasure, but one story in my freshman lit class tried very hard to wake me up.
Many years later, I remembered Edna from The Awakening and wept for the crucial lesson I had totally missed.
When I was a full-time mom, books offset the mind-numbing effects of too many sessions of Candyland and too many showings of Mary Poppins.
They also helped me be a better mom.
Even after the most trying of days, I could always find the energy to read Guess How Much I Love You?, Everyone Poops, or one of the other books from the wonderful library I created for my two kids.
Over the next couple of decades, books continued to try and shake me out of my unconscious suburban trance.
But, I was buried in layers of societal and familial grooming and my brain was thoroughly washed.
I do remember realizing it definitely wasn’t a good sign that The Bridges of Madison County sent me into a weeklong depression.
Eat Pray Love sent me to another dark and bereft place, but it planted a seed as well.
The Four Agreements made me pay attention.
A Life of One’s Own got me really thinking.
Women Who Run With the Wolves set me free.
Then, what did I do to repay the books I loved so deeply???
I left them on their shelves…for nearly three years…while I was consumed by my own passionate, and ultimately tragic, love story.
But, unlike the people around me, they weren’t upset. They waited patiently for my return, then they healed me.
After When Things Fall Apart helped me uncurl from a fetal position, I vowed never to let anything come between my books and I again.
The Brothers K, The Geography of Bliss, Man’s Search for Meaning, Amberwell, The Course of Love…so many treasures!
When I made the decision to be an expat in Panamá, I remembered my vow.
Not only did I bring my books with me, I built a retreat centered around them—one that I would have savored when I needed time off from being a mom and, later, when I needed uninterrupted time to excavate my true self.
Today, my love affair with books runs even deeper.
They are, in fact, my lifeline.
While the humans in my life flit in and out of their connection to me, books are my constant.
They may not always live up to the hype or my hopes, but they consistently offer me an endless supply of “aha” moments, laughter, tears, and companionship and infinite possibilities.
Click below to see all of the books that made it to Panamá and now live in the Vista Cañas Lending Library waiting for you to read them!