I started collecting old books. I was in Ashville, NC and went to a little used book store. I would not say I am a "reader" I like a book once in awhile but not nearly like some of my friends. When exploring a new town I search for vintage shops, records stores and used book stores. They usually are in close proximity of each other. While strolling the aisle, I came across a small blue faded book. The spine worn so that the blue was barely there showing the tan base of the cover. On a faded blue back ground there etched in gold DAVID COPPERFIELD -DICKENS. Awesome an old Dickens book, is there really any other way to read Dickens?
I opened the book carefully as it felt so fragile in my hands to find a delicate handwritten message:
To Edith
Christmas 1935
from Olga
At this very moment, as my eyes glanced over this small message. I felt something, a warm feeling, my heart was beating a bit deeper. My eyes stopped on this page as my mind started to wonder. Who were these people? Did they live in NC? Was this one of Edith's favorite books? Were they friends or sisters? How great of a gift, a book! I never give books as a gift. And what a wonderful idea to write the date that the book was gifted. I have to have this book!
This was my first purchase and the start of collecting something that once was special to someone. A gift given or a book they purchased, read, loved it or hated it but decided to at least write their name in it. I have decided to write my name and date of purchase in them as well. So maybe one day a gal like me, living life trying to find her place in the world will walk into a used book store pick up a random old book and get butterflies in her stomach thinking of how this book was a part of someone's life, sat in a corner or on a table as life was happening around it.
Secondly, I recently went to my favorite vintage shop and decided to browse their books. I found two amazing books. The Collected Works of Emile Zola. It had a name JR something "I can't read the last name dated 1924 Richmond, VA . But as I am typing this I found a worn sticker with a beautiful sketch of a tree and a name typed out J.R.Cosimini.
The other book didn't have any writing, I just like the way it looked, smelled and how the crisp brown pages felt between my fingers. This is the book I am currently reading and also the reason for my sharing with you today of my book collecting. I was laying on my couch in my pj's this morning, listening to the Rachel's on vinyl, reading this book Message from a Stranger. It's a story about a lady who has passed away but is stuck in the "in between" and is watching her friends and family mourn and move on with their lives after she is gone. She is discussing how during these visits she doesn't really have emotions other then anxiety for whom she loves to help them or not so much an emotion but a reaction of being confronted with the complete pattern of her own life. I came across this passage and read it a few times, it just hit something, a truth maybe. I leave you with this.
"How merciful, too, was the illusion we create, the rationalization we make, to prove to ourselves that we are really better than we are. In this way do people compose their faces before they look into the mirror. In this way are people shocked when they are confronted, unprepared, by their image in a window or in an unexpected mirror. 'That is a stranger,' is their first thought; and only later, 'My God, that is ME'
And so, in the words and thoughts of the living and in the still-adhesive memories of my life, these self-illusions, so carefully maintained, dissolved into thin air; and there stood the full, illuminated image, without shadow or nimbus, of a woman bearing my name."
Yes books are great gifts and yes date them too. I put my name, a date and sometimes what I thought of the book.
ReplyDelete