The package contained only the book and the note. It’s true that my classroom Bible had vanished, a New International Version, but that would have been at least six years ago before I retired from teaching full time and had to clear my classroom book shelves. I usually kept a Qur’an on my shelves too. I am interested in scripture. I am respectful of sacred text.
My granddaughter Ruby with her chosen books, cross-legged on a little chair, and making that one cookie last as long as possible.
I buy books. My husband buys books. We have, on occasion, vowed to stop, but we do not stop. We buy more books. Purchasing books is no cheaper than smoking or drug use, but this habit will not kill either of us.
We buy books.
We buy books from second-hand vendors and the local stores and Powell’s Book Store in Portland. We buy from independent small presses. We read about them online.
We buy books that make us suck our breath. Books for the past and future. We buy books that tell us our own story. We buy books that tell us a story we have never heard before. We buy books because we are not in district for the local lending library and the school library has a tiny collection. We buy books because we like to own books, and because the books we want will never be in our local libraries. We buy books because that is how authors make a living. We buy books to reread. We buy books because I write them. We buy books to covet and collect and loan to friends. We buy books for photographs and poetry. We buy books we cannot read because they are in Icelandic or Greek.
We look to books for laugher and tears. We look for education. Inspiration. Peace and hope and joy. Possibility. Truth.
A bird in the house is supposed to foretell death. Books are different. We buy books because research shows that just having books in a house with children will cause them to do better in school. A blessing.
We buy books to find lives we will never live.
We buy books to find ideas we do not have time to explore without help.
We buy books to find the other side.
We buy old books and out of print books and books that contain references we cannot find in the edition we already own. We order books we hear about and books we read about and books we wish we’d written ourselves.
We have books written originally in English and books in translation. We have books we still have not read. We have books bought in duplicate because we forgot we already had a copy. We have multiple translations of the same text, in order to place them side by side and judge for ourselves.
We have books we struggle to read because they are complex. We struggle reading books we do not have the training to understand. We read books that are over our heads and require additional sources to follow.
We never highlight with yellow markers or underline or dog ear—an abuse of pages. We use bookmarks and post-it note, tabs to help us back to the lines we want. We treasure and treat these books with the respect they deserve. All our dreams and goals and desires fit along their lines.
It is not true that you cannot have too many books. We have too many books. I feel a little guilty for having four pairs of black boots, but I do not feel guilty for owning the entire Patrick O’Brian series, even though I have already read them each twice.
We have filled many bookcases, sorted through and organized them by genre, subject, and author. (We do not sort books by the color of their bindings—an abominable habit we would never inflict on friends.) We give books away—we buy new copies to give. We loan them to friends who are gentle with them. When the bookcases become too tight to allow another purchase, we sort and we make the hard choice to allow some to reenter the world outside our door. Then we buy more.
We buy them so that they are ours and belong in our home.
For as long as I have had days, there have been books in my house.
We buy books.
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 