stillfix.blogg.se

I only have a portion of my library here in Vancouver, but still I’ve found myself handing out much-loved volumes, first to housemates, but more recently to other friends as well. I’ve lent out more books than usual in the past few months. A bit perilous, but, as my dad always used to say, “Ships in a harbor are safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” True, he didn’t usually use the metaphor to refer to mold-speckled paperbacks, but I digress…

I habitually lend out books and, for obvious reasons, they’re usually my favorite ones. It has, in fact, given rise to one of my more dangerous habits: book-lending. This revelation that it is possible for others to read what I have read and experience it in a similar way has been a surprising discovery, but overall a happy one. Perhaps they even knew and loved them first. In some ways, the last twenty years of my life have simply been the journey of unlearning that, of coming to understand that, just maybe, other people might know and love the things that I know and love. It belonged to me and I belonged to it-we existed together, eternally solitary and melancholically happy. There has always been something about a good story, especially when I was young and starry-eyed and consuming two or three books at a time on long summer days, that made me believe the magic of it could only be for me. Ever since I was a kid, whenever I read a book and love it, just really love it, I have a hard time comprehending that anyone else has ever read it too.