Taking a break from work, I decided to start restocking my bookcases. Since I moved out of my condo in June, I hadn't seen the loves of my life, my books! The had been suffocating in recycled Costco boxes and plastic containers. The first shelf I organized consisted of philosophy and political thought. Books by John Stuart Mill, Marx, Dostoevsky, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. By the smell of one, I was transported to my sophomore year of undergraduate...hoovering over my old self...I saw myself in a 3am discussion with my roommate on nihilism, existentialism, and various world views.
Some of you might think I am crazy, but I know how my books smell and appreciate it. Each book provides a fond memory and connects me to my past, a certain feeling, or life experience. I am particular about my books, the way I organize them, and how and if I lend them. The ones I lend are for my friends and staff to enlightenment themselves. I treat them to the delicacies Bertrand Russell, Jack Keroauc, and Paulo Freire wrote. The books closest to me...the ones in my heart and mind, can never be shared. Those pages keep my inner most thoughts and retain a part of my past. In those manuscripts, I am connected to a previous time and space I have occupied...in each I leave a piece of myself and also take a piece of it; I am Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye), David Brower (Encounter with the Arch Druid), Sal Paradise (On the Road), Meursault (L'etranger), Demetrio Macías (Los de Abajo), Don Quixote, and Artemio Cruz (La Muerte de Artemio Cruz).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment