My Library

The professor who taught my Elizabethan Era Shakespeare class had an office that probably spanned the entirety of my downstairs. I mean, colossal. This was COVID-era college, and Professor Vitkus required cameras on and good lighting.

With the help of his good lighting, I was able to see the back of Professor Vitkus’ office where there was a wall. A very long wall. On this wall were floor-to-ceiling, deep brown bookshelves complete with the largest home library I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. I felt that I could walk into that room and ask Professor Vitkus for a book and he’d guide me over to where he thinks it is and tell me to grab it when I find it. I also got the impression that his library was clean. Not in the sense that his housekeeper came in and dusted twice a week; but, in the sense that his library was one of utility and use. That the last time he pulled any given book of those shelves was just yesterday. The books could simply not gather dust because the books were loved and read. I can imagine what that room must smell like even now.

My grandmother’s house has a similar room with deep chocolate shelving that serves as the library but mostly goes unused. Growing up, we began putting my books there–I believe the first one was October Sky by Homer Hickman Jr. Twilight may have graced those shelves at one point and certainly some Stephen King novels over the years.

I began taking my personal library seriously at 15. I lived in a one bedroom apartment with my father and his girlfriend at which they generously gave me the bedroom while they took the futon in the living room. I found two white planks of wood and simple brackets for the corner of the bedroom. With the drilling into the apartment walls, my library was born.

My father invested in me as much as he could which ultimately was not a lot. My sports dwindled one by one: couldn’t afford it turned into didn’t you know we don’t have health insurance? And as they dwindled, my time was spent more and more with figuring out ways to fill it. I asked my dad if he could take me to a used bookstore down the street. I wouldn’t get anything, I just wanted to go in and look.

With surprising zeal, my father took me and said he has no problem with me going there.

As much as I know that my father loved to watch me play soccer, every step of it was met with resistance to the financial burden it was causing. Driving to practice, tournament fees, a new uniform. There’s surely something to be said about the price comparison between competitive sports and some used books; but, my father’s reaction was as surprising to me now as it was then. And so we went. The Open Book just a half mile away and such incredible treasures it held. I began in the Classics section, unknown to why I was drawn to it. The early philologist in me rearing its head, I suppose.

That day, I bought a stack of books that I needed help holding which my father gladly did. And for many, many days after that, I went back. Sometimes just to smell the pages and other times to act on a recommendation. I bought my first copy of East of Eden at The Open Book which is now in the hands of a dear friend in New York. That book has traveled time and space.

My library now holds a newer copy of East of Eden because I would notice its absence. And that is the truth. I have kept every single book since October Sky because I would feel the ping of loneliness without it. My library now holds 301 books in alphabetical order. It does not collect dust and it grows day by day. Sometimes it grows because the oils on my fingers gives the pages a new thickness and other times it grows because I have been lucky enough to add another to the shelves. Though certainly not as impressive as Professor Vitkus’, My Library is a token of a girl who spent every recess and every lunch in the library when she was 6. It is a token of my older sister teaching me how to read and me just memorizing the words so that I could read more. It is a token of the investment my father put into me and my education despite there being no feasible way for him to do so.

In short, My Library is the memory of who I was and the hope of who I will become. When I look at a book on my shelves, I recall where and when I acquired the book. If it was a gift, from whom. The tears I shed over its pages and the laughs I belted still echoing in the binding. The highlights from projects in high school to sticky notes for papers in college withering with age and becoming more illegible by the day. The comments heard while packing and moving 6 boxes of books fall onto deaf ears because the books and I share an inside joke that they just can’t understand.

Books were my friends, they are my friends. I feel whole and complete with them and I am reminded of my mortality and feeble humanity without them. Literature impresses upon me a certain conviction that is unwavering. While other goals ebb and flow, the conviction I feel is just as strong now as it was then. Whenever that was. I imagine myself shaking people and yelling in their faces, “look what you’re missing.” But it would be of no use.

And so I stay. Sat with my books in every room so as to never be apart. And I feel lucky. Lucky that the 6 year old little girl felt so in need of something that she turned to the sacred word to fill the void. Lucky that October Sky now sits alongside The Iliad and The Phenomenology of Spirit. And lucky that the sacred word fills the void in such a way that I feel convicted enough to make sure we all understand its value. However I am able to do that will be the most fulfilling act of my life.

I dream of the day that we all have libraries. A place where we sit and be still for some time. Breathing in the peculiar smell of old pages and letting curiosity fill our minds. There is nothing more pure or earnest in this world.

As always, read on then read some more. Act on your curiosities and let your mind wander until it’s lost. Life is about trying to find it again.