World of books

As I continue to simplify my life and push off those things which demand so much of my time (and yet, benefit myself and others so little), I see glimpses of the life that I am working toward. Ironically, it is often a life I once had. Also ironically, it may be one which I have made, in part, completely impossible to regain.

Yesterday evening, instead of staying home to file the paperwork which is in piles around the perimeter of my living room (which is the reason I gave for not going to visit someone earlier in the afternoon) before heading to a late-night computer consult/repair session… instead I went to Barnes & Noble.

I’ve been there a couple of times this year so far, but always with someone else, always on their shopping trip, so my time was limited and my browsing dictated as much by their necessity. This trip, though finite due to the later appointment, was strictly for me.

I spent several minutes surfing the shelves in one part of the store, and eventually found my way into computer/internet programming. Then I remembered my brother asking me for some pointers about PHP, and I thought to evaluate several selections as guides to give my brother for his birthday.

So I spent about an hour propped up in an overstuffed chair flipping through, skimming chapters, and listening to a Law School study group at the table beside me explain why the President “actually does” have authorities beyond what the Constitution limits to him… the fools.

I had a wonderful and all too brief of a time.

A few years back (within the span of this diary, actually) I spent a lot of time there. At least once a week – more or less – I would spend an entire evening there, and close the store down. I did it then because I was poor, and felt that if I was with other people, in a commercial setting, that I was somehow participating in society – even if I didn’t buy a book.

Now I realize how rich I really was, to be able to do such a thing. To not worry about having to mow the yard or tend to the house… for a fleeting moment I saw an image of having my own vast library full of overstuffed chairs and comfortable lighting, with a dull ambient sound and gentle mechanical breeze touched with the scent of books… and then realized that no, such a library is a huge expense, and requires maintenance, and in my life, my home-life at the moment, such a place would be quite lonely.

Not to mention simply impossible because my house is not huge. And is soon to be “not my house”.

As I wrote the above I pondered, under what circumstances could such a thing work? And the answer comes back to, again and again, some kind of public (private) facility. A resort, a bed-n-breakfast, a place that draws people to it. But my desire is not to be the maintainer of such a place, but rather the architect. Place plays out in my mind as my eyes scan those words, and there is a great unfolding of space.

I ponder it for several minutes, staring out the window beside me, finding a universe in the glare from the sun on the windshield of a car. Then it comes back to me: such things are not possible, and who am I to dream them?

I am no one, no such person. I will content my days with curling up in a bookstore and losing myself there. I cannot tell if I am comfortable with that thought or not. As I consider it now, all I know is that it is warm outside, and the sunbeams gleam brightly, and I must take a nap in my car and let the day wash over me.