My Endless Love

Tonight, after taking in a movie, I spent a bit of time wandering around my new town and stumbled into a Barnes and Noble. For me, bookstores and libraries have always retained magical qualities, a sort of gravitational pull that I am rarely capable of resisting. Even though I have shelves of unread, perfectly wonderful books of all kinds, I cannot keep myself out of the stacks, touching the unbroken spines, the sometimes textured covers, thrumming my fingers over the pages.

This love affair of course did not develop all on its own. It was nurtured from the time I was tiny, as my mother packed my childhood nursery, then bedroom with literally hundreds of books, asked friends and family to give me more, and religiously (often, more religiously than our actual religious practice), she took me to the library. Summer wasn't a time for t.v. watching, or camp, or exotic trips for me- it was a time to see how many books I could fill the pages of the Summer Reading program's tracking list I got each year.

The librarian didn't know what to do with me. The goal for the summer in the reading program was to amass about 10 or 15 books for elementary and middle school kids. I would return after a week or two with a list filled front and back with dozens, literally dozens of books I'd documented, read, re-read. My 4 foot self would drag an old bookbag as big as me through the library doors after my Mom picked me up from the babysitter to drop off my conquests and to get more. I was insatiable.

Now, of course some of this love- borderline obsession- was a product of my childhood. My mother worked a lot and I spent mornings before and after school. as well as all summer, with an elderly, uber-Catholic disciplinarian of a woman who allowed no television, no loud games, and did not have much in the way of toys. It seemed like a curse at the time, delving out all those hours at her house, but what I realize now, having spent a sublimely pleasurable 20 minutes just wandering the stacks is how lucky I am.

At the risk of sounding old, kids today don't know what they are missing. Sure, they have video games that make them feel as though they are in a war-torn third-world country fighting for freedom, and DVR so that while playing, they don't miss their favorite shows. They've got Justin Bieber and Twilight premieres and texting. They are more worldly than I ever was. But it makes me sad sometimes that the bookstores and libraries of the world are not getting the respect and gratification they deserve. These places taught me to seek, to question, to write, and to think. They were windows to the world when mine was so closed and small. Their books gave me inspiration, imagination, hope for more and better things to come. And no matter how many tech devices come out to replace them, for me nothing will ever be as rewarding as turning the last page of a truly great novel, or dusting off a copy of an old favorite to begin it again. No cold, cool piece of machinery will be able to replace the weight of a book in my hand, the flutter of the pages, the smell of the binding, the image of the cover. I worry future generations won't share this same feeling, as many in my own may already have moved beyond it into the digital age. I, however, am happy right where I am.