The night is my companion
And solitude my guide
Would I spend forever here,
and not be satisfied?
I'm in love with my bookstore.
I go sometimes, on a whim,when I have a little extra somethng to spend. Going without that somethng extra is a sure way into disaster for me, I'm not compulsive about much, but my books have a hold on me that equals the most powerful of enchantments. As a child we would drive an hour to the nearest city and where my brother bought CDs and others bought video games, I had my books. My library is signifigantly smaller than it once was, but I am still protective over it as I am few other things in my life.
This bookstore had me from the first day I walked into it. The storefront is a little nothing, just one more store in a city full of them, and I often ignored it for what seemed to be better stores, certainly ones more worthy of my time. But one day, with time to kill and not wanting to go home, I finally crossed the threshold into the inside.
Upon entering, you are assaulted by silence. There's no music being piped in the background, voices, if any, are hushed, and even the noises of the highway outside fade into nothing. Far from being uncomfortable, the stillness is almost reverent, much like the silence you find in libraries, or the hush of a temple in the midst of prayer. You drink it in a moment, adjust from the noisy world you just left, a pause at the threshold into another reailty. Then, you take that step...
Oh, you speak to me in riddles
and you speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath
Your words keep me alive
Books, everywhere books, on tables, in racks, on shelves so full some are on their sides resting on other books. The shelves go straight up, until a shorter person couldnt reach the topmost shelves, the table filled to graoning with books is four deep of huge hardbacks and three to four tables long. The spines on the books become a riot of muted color, and the choices of so many tomes in one place becomes a form of indecision. Sometimes I pause again, not knowing where to begin, just scanning the room until something catches my eye. At others I am drawn inoxerably to the tables silently bearing their burden, displaying books like a feast for the senses, teasing with the promise of treasure, that one book among the many that will entrance and capture, overlooked by a thousand other careless hands until you picked it up, treasured it, gently handled back and spine and, entranced by what you found within, carried it carefully home. I spend some time, running up and down those piled books, but have not found my treasure yet. Had I more money, I would have been tempted by the book on French lingerie spanning over a century in pictures and explanbation, but I could not afford it and hadnt the compulsion to buy it anyway (a sure sign you have, indeed, found your treasure) and allowed it to slip through my fingers. However, I still hope it will be there next time.
I moved on to the rack behind me, finally found what I had long ago ceased looking for, This Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche, for a piddling price as well. Here was my treasure, hidden on a rack, the book I once looked for and never found, and now has turned up to speak to me in its own time. Perhaps I would need to understand it now more than before, or perhaps one thing will lead to another and it will sit on my shelf, gathering dust and memories, treasured but unread, until that magical day comes that I finally opn its pages and unlock the secrets inside. Behind it was The Analects by Confucius, and I chose that one as well, for a counterbalance, and because I need to know more about the eastern mysticism. I flipped through it, and can tell reading it might potentially be a chore, but intigued, I got it anyway.
Breathe deep of paper and wood and ink, the scent powerful but not overwhelmingly so as I look around, choose my next target. Only ten minutes in the store and I'm not prepared to leave yet, this is my sabattical, my own private house of worship, the minds and wisdom of the centuries of people before me, their last legacy to the world, acts of courage, compassion, pompousness, or fear, whatever drove them to pen word to paper and put their minds and souls on display. And the people through the centuries who have loved them, who have bought a thousand copies of a million different books, hand after hand, eye after eye, some so far as to read it from a scroll, then have it commited to wood pulp and quill pen, and later to be printed on the first press, and later still to roll into mass production with printing presses our ancestors would weep for. Mind and eye and heart and voice, one thirsting soul after another drinking from these fountains and leaving quenches, changed, sometimes forever. No, I'm not ready to leave yet, I have joined the millions of parishoners and now it is my turn to pray.
I move off into the store.
Oh, into the sea of waking dreams
I follow without pride
Cause' nothing stands between us here
And I won't be denied
I am among the shelves, fingers reverently touching spines, making physical connection with the smells and the hushed silence, the reason these things exist. My fingers trace books that are the product of thousands of years of history and learning. You dont think about it, really, but these books are a miracle, the birthright of ancient man, compelled to paint the walls of his cave to tell stories, the culmination of man's attempt to reach across the void, space the distance and touch another man, to make their truths and loves and lives known and felt to others. To be less alone. My fingers trace a hundred years of politics, maybe a thousand of religion. It flows over poets so old their bones are but dust and memories, but they do not pause. Today my hunger takes another form, and though I know not what it is, I follow it.
They finally pause, hovering across The Silent Orgasm by Taschen, a book on eastern philosophy, kundalini, and possibly tantra. I grit my teeth at the price, even half of other stors (as everything here seems to be) it is still twice what I should een consider. I put it back, think to move on...pause. This is it then, the treasure I cannot leave behind, even though it would be better I did. Even with no low price to seduce me, I cannot bear too. Its added to the pile and I move on. I plan on buying nothing more, this maxes me, but still I am not done, not ready to go home. I will be back again later, and when I am, if there is another thing I want, I'll get it then. I am consumed by the hush, and it isnt my time to go yet.
I am now back among the tall shelves, back in the maze. Topics move quickly here, now youth, now history, now automobiles, now occult, and much of it is still being put together. Some shelves have no theme, just books taken out of boxes, lined up and waiting for a home among the catagories, while other shelves are still completely bare. Back among these shelves you're in another world, lost in subject matter and transported back in time to some ancient London bookstore with cobwebs in the corners and books so ancient that you never know if opening one will give you old recipies or release an ancient evil. I flow through automotive, but still no Nissan Chilton manual, so I let it go. I see locamotive books and briefly wonder if my child is still train obsessed. If so, these would be divine. I pause in the occult and new age section, so many years my second home, and look. Most I have read and/or owned, and many more have been permanently on my "to buy" list but havent yet ended up in my lap. All in its good time. And then I find In Search of Zarathustra by Paul Kriwaczek. It was a book on the journey of the prophet that Nietzsche wrote of, following his influence from the moment he arrived in this world and through history. I was intrigued enough to buy it,yet another balance to the first book I had chosen, and a history I would be intrigued to read.
I floated a bit more, but by now either the hunger was sated or the paranoia bug doing a jig in my brain, the money was speaking louder now. I flipped with reverence through several books on roses and was delighted anew by the strangeness and color of our past with Sailor's Valentines and lusted after the book but let it go as well, and found my way to the front. The pricetag was too much but I would be okay, so I accepted it. Behind the counter was another treasure, but not one I could have today, and I was unwilling to let go any of the others I had chosen. A book on the history of scents and perfumes all the wat from Ancient Egypt to the present day, a thing I had once gotten into heavily and find myself missing. I put it on hold and left singing.
And I would be the one
To hold you down
Kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd
wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes, dear
Bookstores make me feel like that, especially on days like then when I am already soft and fuzzy around the edges, a sort of quiet zen state of mind. They are a soft, slow spreading ecstacy, the sweetness of sex without the sharp pierce of lust, a fountain to a thirst that is never quenched and a hunger tha is never fed, and they are some of my favorite places in the world. Who knew a simple outing to get food could be rewarded with so much adventure, and so much fun?
Or did you thnk all adventure could only be denoted with adrenaline? *G*
And I would be the one....
And solitude my guide
Would I spend forever here,
and not be satisfied?
I'm in love with my bookstore.
I go sometimes, on a whim,when I have a little extra somethng to spend. Going without that somethng extra is a sure way into disaster for me, I'm not compulsive about much, but my books have a hold on me that equals the most powerful of enchantments. As a child we would drive an hour to the nearest city and where my brother bought CDs and others bought video games, I had my books. My library is signifigantly smaller than it once was, but I am still protective over it as I am few other things in my life.
This bookstore had me from the first day I walked into it. The storefront is a little nothing, just one more store in a city full of them, and I often ignored it for what seemed to be better stores, certainly ones more worthy of my time. But one day, with time to kill and not wanting to go home, I finally crossed the threshold into the inside.
Upon entering, you are assaulted by silence. There's no music being piped in the background, voices, if any, are hushed, and even the noises of the highway outside fade into nothing. Far from being uncomfortable, the stillness is almost reverent, much like the silence you find in libraries, or the hush of a temple in the midst of prayer. You drink it in a moment, adjust from the noisy world you just left, a pause at the threshold into another reailty. Then, you take that step...
Oh, you speak to me in riddles
and you speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath
Your words keep me alive
Books, everywhere books, on tables, in racks, on shelves so full some are on their sides resting on other books. The shelves go straight up, until a shorter person couldnt reach the topmost shelves, the table filled to graoning with books is four deep of huge hardbacks and three to four tables long. The spines on the books become a riot of muted color, and the choices of so many tomes in one place becomes a form of indecision. Sometimes I pause again, not knowing where to begin, just scanning the room until something catches my eye. At others I am drawn inoxerably to the tables silently bearing their burden, displaying books like a feast for the senses, teasing with the promise of treasure, that one book among the many that will entrance and capture, overlooked by a thousand other careless hands until you picked it up, treasured it, gently handled back and spine and, entranced by what you found within, carried it carefully home. I spend some time, running up and down those piled books, but have not found my treasure yet. Had I more money, I would have been tempted by the book on French lingerie spanning over a century in pictures and explanbation, but I could not afford it and hadnt the compulsion to buy it anyway (a sure sign you have, indeed, found your treasure) and allowed it to slip through my fingers. However, I still hope it will be there next time.
I moved on to the rack behind me, finally found what I had long ago ceased looking for, This Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche, for a piddling price as well. Here was my treasure, hidden on a rack, the book I once looked for and never found, and now has turned up to speak to me in its own time. Perhaps I would need to understand it now more than before, or perhaps one thing will lead to another and it will sit on my shelf, gathering dust and memories, treasured but unread, until that magical day comes that I finally opn its pages and unlock the secrets inside. Behind it was The Analects by Confucius, and I chose that one as well, for a counterbalance, and because I need to know more about the eastern mysticism. I flipped through it, and can tell reading it might potentially be a chore, but intigued, I got it anyway.
Breathe deep of paper and wood and ink, the scent powerful but not overwhelmingly so as I look around, choose my next target. Only ten minutes in the store and I'm not prepared to leave yet, this is my sabattical, my own private house of worship, the minds and wisdom of the centuries of people before me, their last legacy to the world, acts of courage, compassion, pompousness, or fear, whatever drove them to pen word to paper and put their minds and souls on display. And the people through the centuries who have loved them, who have bought a thousand copies of a million different books, hand after hand, eye after eye, some so far as to read it from a scroll, then have it commited to wood pulp and quill pen, and later to be printed on the first press, and later still to roll into mass production with printing presses our ancestors would weep for. Mind and eye and heart and voice, one thirsting soul after another drinking from these fountains and leaving quenches, changed, sometimes forever. No, I'm not ready to leave yet, I have joined the millions of parishoners and now it is my turn to pray.
I move off into the store.
Oh, into the sea of waking dreams
I follow without pride
Cause' nothing stands between us here
And I won't be denied
I am among the shelves, fingers reverently touching spines, making physical connection with the smells and the hushed silence, the reason these things exist. My fingers trace books that are the product of thousands of years of history and learning. You dont think about it, really, but these books are a miracle, the birthright of ancient man, compelled to paint the walls of his cave to tell stories, the culmination of man's attempt to reach across the void, space the distance and touch another man, to make their truths and loves and lives known and felt to others. To be less alone. My fingers trace a hundred years of politics, maybe a thousand of religion. It flows over poets so old their bones are but dust and memories, but they do not pause. Today my hunger takes another form, and though I know not what it is, I follow it.
They finally pause, hovering across The Silent Orgasm by Taschen, a book on eastern philosophy, kundalini, and possibly tantra. I grit my teeth at the price, even half of other stors (as everything here seems to be) it is still twice what I should een consider. I put it back, think to move on...pause. This is it then, the treasure I cannot leave behind, even though it would be better I did. Even with no low price to seduce me, I cannot bear too. Its added to the pile and I move on. I plan on buying nothing more, this maxes me, but still I am not done, not ready to go home. I will be back again later, and when I am, if there is another thing I want, I'll get it then. I am consumed by the hush, and it isnt my time to go yet.
I am now back among the tall shelves, back in the maze. Topics move quickly here, now youth, now history, now automobiles, now occult, and much of it is still being put together. Some shelves have no theme, just books taken out of boxes, lined up and waiting for a home among the catagories, while other shelves are still completely bare. Back among these shelves you're in another world, lost in subject matter and transported back in time to some ancient London bookstore with cobwebs in the corners and books so ancient that you never know if opening one will give you old recipies or release an ancient evil. I flow through automotive, but still no Nissan Chilton manual, so I let it go. I see locamotive books and briefly wonder if my child is still train obsessed. If so, these would be divine. I pause in the occult and new age section, so many years my second home, and look. Most I have read and/or owned, and many more have been permanently on my "to buy" list but havent yet ended up in my lap. All in its good time. And then I find In Search of Zarathustra by Paul Kriwaczek. It was a book on the journey of the prophet that Nietzsche wrote of, following his influence from the moment he arrived in this world and through history. I was intrigued enough to buy it,yet another balance to the first book I had chosen, and a history I would be intrigued to read.
I floated a bit more, but by now either the hunger was sated or the paranoia bug doing a jig in my brain, the money was speaking louder now. I flipped with reverence through several books on roses and was delighted anew by the strangeness and color of our past with Sailor's Valentines and lusted after the book but let it go as well, and found my way to the front. The pricetag was too much but I would be okay, so I accepted it. Behind the counter was another treasure, but not one I could have today, and I was unwilling to let go any of the others I had chosen. A book on the history of scents and perfumes all the wat from Ancient Egypt to the present day, a thing I had once gotten into heavily and find myself missing. I put it on hold and left singing.
And I would be the one
To hold you down
Kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd
wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes, dear
Bookstores make me feel like that, especially on days like then when I am already soft and fuzzy around the edges, a sort of quiet zen state of mind. They are a soft, slow spreading ecstacy, the sweetness of sex without the sharp pierce of lust, a fountain to a thirst that is never quenched and a hunger tha is never fed, and they are some of my favorite places in the world. Who knew a simple outing to get food could be rewarded with so much adventure, and so much fun?
Or did you thnk all adventure could only be denoted with adrenaline? *G*
And I would be the one....