Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Borrowed books
I am afflicted with that all-too-common, annoying-to-everyone (even those who have it) illness of lax book borrower.
I think it began with moving every three or four years (or seven months) growing up. We unpacked library books hurriedly stuffed with ours. I recall my mother saying we should send those back, but I still have some, I'm embarrassed to say. Returning them all with a check for who knows how many years of fines is on my list of do before I die. My husband gleefully calls me--miss goody two-shoes--evil thief for this lapse.
However, I realized one positive part of this fault when I rescued some of the books from my childhood from my three-year-old son. I connect books with my history.
I have given our children most of the books my mother saved for me, because I wanted them to share in my upbringing. The Laughing Dragon, Sloth's Birthday Party, Mouse Soup are my history. I can't go down the street to a school I attended; they're in Ohio, Arkansas, Oregon, and Texas. I don't meet people I knew from childhood; I don't even know where they are. We lived in all the "o" states before I graduated from high school.
But every time we moved, our house became home with the unpacking of the books. So my books are my history. And that part of me reared up when I found the cover ripped off of one. So I will be saving some of my favorites for when he's a little older.
This attitude toward books also saves my thiefdom from conviction. I remember the people I've borrowed from much more than if I had none of their books. The waiter at the Chinese restaurant who insisted his name was "Waiter" and loaned my his French quotation book, my best friend from college, the one family I stayed in touch with from Ohio. The nagging guilt of needing to return their books has grafted them into my memory. I think of them, pray for them, and even call them far more than if I didn't have that book on the shelf reserved for borrowed books.
So books not only connect me with my history, they make me part of a community, far-flung though it is. If I return them, will I forget their owners? No, but I won't think of them as often. Guilt, in small amounts, properly forgotten and ignored, can perhaps be useful. Who knew?
Books from my childhood:
I think it began with moving every three or four years (or seven months) growing up. We unpacked library books hurriedly stuffed with ours. I recall my mother saying we should send those back, but I still have some, I'm embarrassed to say. Returning them all with a check for who knows how many years of fines is on my list of do before I die. My husband gleefully calls me--miss goody two-shoes--evil thief for this lapse.
However, I realized one positive part of this fault when I rescued some of the books from my childhood from my three-year-old son. I connect books with my history.
I have given our children most of the books my mother saved for me, because I wanted them to share in my upbringing. The Laughing Dragon, Sloth's Birthday Party, Mouse Soup are my history. I can't go down the street to a school I attended; they're in Ohio, Arkansas, Oregon, and Texas. I don't meet people I knew from childhood; I don't even know where they are. We lived in all the "o" states before I graduated from high school.
But every time we moved, our house became home with the unpacking of the books. So my books are my history. And that part of me reared up when I found the cover ripped off of one. So I will be saving some of my favorites for when he's a little older.
This attitude toward books also saves my thiefdom from conviction. I remember the people I've borrowed from much more than if I had none of their books. The waiter at the Chinese restaurant who insisted his name was "Waiter" and loaned my his French quotation book, my best friend from college, the one family I stayed in touch with from Ohio. The nagging guilt of needing to return their books has grafted them into my memory. I think of them, pray for them, and even call them far more than if I didn't have that book on the shelf reserved for borrowed books.
So books not only connect me with my history, they make me part of a community, far-flung though it is. If I return them, will I forget their owners? No, but I won't think of them as often. Guilt, in small amounts, properly forgotten and ignored, can perhaps be useful. Who knew?
Books from my childhood:
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