As a young girl in the Philippines, we would go to the bookstore for class materials. The books needed for grammar school were not supplied like they do in the United States. The school gives you a list of books, you buy the paperbacks and then enshroud them with thick clear industrial smelling plastic to protect them from the elements. That is probably the genesis of my peculiar obsession with keeping books pristine. My close friends know that my books with spines unbent are treasures. A perverse obsession branching from this is my need to pick a magazine from the middle of the stack because it is pristine and no other energy has stained it, but the people who published it, individuals who transported it and the person who shelved it. What is more perverse is that I have to be the one to read my purchase first. God help you if you help yourself to them first. My list of proclivities is long and varied...
A beat of excitement rose to a slow crescendo as I drove to the Borders Bookstore on N. Dale Mabry in Trampa. It flat lined into a steady seductive hum when I entered the double doors. What an intoxicating drug these books that lined the shelves, a feast for the eyes and the mind. It’s barely tolerable, but I persevere inside.
Fiction says hello first, a naughty wink from gay fiction, followed by nods in non-fiction and literature. I must remember to get Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. African-American studies follow which makes me ponder something. If the author is British or hail from the African continent, are they still shelved under ‘African-American’? Just a thought.
My journey continues to European (or as Yummy says “yurp”) and Chinese studies. I am drawn to things of Chinese origin; must be my own smidge of blood origin. Have you seen my Asiatic eyes? Moving on…We get to my controversial section. Religious Studies. If the words would write themselves, they would have a tinge of crimson…Nice Goddess now coming through Evil Kitty.
After I lovingly touch some of the Judaica section, I search for the Lamsa Bible which is a direct translation by Dr. George Lamsa from the Aramaic version of the Peshitta where all Christian bibles originate. No one corrupting the translation because they wanted to flavor it with their own view (King James anyone?) or that they didn’t know the Aramaic letters, customs or colloquialisms that made it hard to translate into Greek or Latin. Enough on that – I was happy they had one copy.
I turned the corner and secretly chuckled. It was the shelves containing Erotica. How apropos that religion would be supported by erotica or is that the reverse if you are traveling the opposite direction in the bookstore? I noted a book by Dr. Deepak Chopra entitled Kama Sutra, published by none other than Virgin Books. God, I love the universal humor! It just gets better by being surrounded in the same section with Self-Help and Metaphysics. I’m sure you will not be surprised when I tell you that this big chunk of section is my favorite…religion, erotica, self-help and metaphysics…AGOL salad!
I digress…I normally make a pass at the Reference and Foreign Language section, but that is like asking a recovering cocaine addict to pass the cocaine. Skip! Business section..yawn, maybe later. Travel section…see previous cocaine reference. Cooking section…double cocaine reference. Music...triple cocaine reference. DVDs…safe, mostly until we get to the bookstore’s legalized mental opium den…Magazine and Periodicals….oh God. A siren’s call beckoning you to just test the water...inch by inch until you voluntarily drown in the sea of glossy lollipop colors.
Inwardly sigh…Surface quickly and just breathe.
My sensitivity to the written word wasn’t always this heightened. It was thanks to Angie who gave an 11-year old a Harlequin romance to read. I had trouble with reading comprehension in American English when I came to the States. My teachers considered me a favorite to read out loud, but I couldn’t tell you later the contents of what I had read so Angie decided to help me out when my school book reports didn’t get high marks. There is more to tell here, but some things are just better left untold.
What did I come away with from my special pilgrimage other than a large cup of coffee and a cranberry-walnut muffin? No set resolutions per se, but determined intentions. I also bought glossy lollipops -- issues of “Science of Mind” and “The Atlantic”…and for mental bubblegum, “InStyle”. Wink.
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