I met a man in a bookstore once who loved to know about books
And I would imagine he found joy in the
Tactful? Way he spoke down to me when I said I was looking for Finnegans Rainbow
Or Wake
Or something like that.
I had heard it was good
Actually my boyfriend at the time wanted to read it
And I wanted to get it and share it with him as a surprise
He was planning on taking a class on it
After the summer
(after he would no longer be my boyfriend, but this had nothing to do with the bookstore or the book or the class.
more to do with the nature of distance.
Him in Connecticut me in India.
It is just impossible to make these things work beautiful
and I had to agree with him.
I didn’t of course. Because I am a heart person before a head person and I think he was too but he had been Hurt before and I had patched my wounds sooner than he had.
Or just ignored them at least.
I always loved medicine really.
Really it was that he was very practical.
Long distance doesn’t work he had said
And just for the record his new girlfriend of years.
Guess she is not so new, but new after I was old, or rather,
became the former.
Yes, his current girlfriend she, she lives far away from him.
Sometimes counties, sometimes countries even sometimes continents
But this is just sidenote.
And my heart is happy for his heart.
That it held out finally.
Even when his head told him there was no such thing as faith and I
sort of had to agree because I was tired or arguing.
But I digress)
the man in the bookstore
next to the coffee shop where I worked
coming home everyday smelling of roasted beans and spoiled milk and
mayonnaise
and mustard
and bacon
(I despise bacon
And yes, I understand some, most, people love it with a passion that is almost unparalleled
(I have met vegetarians who eat bacon and still call themselves vegetarians)
but
in the same way that I can’t eat
cakes with frosting that come in small plastic wrappers
(oh aren't you special a former roommate of mine would say, popping nowandlaters into her mouth)
I can’t eat bacon
Oozing fatty greasy strips
Coming from gross animals that poison streams with their urine and will eat anything
ANYTHING
Including human flesh
And garbage
With their razor sharp teeth
Ok. Two important points and then the guy in Oakland I swear
Pigs one at a time are adorable.
Cute, smart clean and lovely.
Especially the baby ones.
I love pigs.
It is a whole lot of pigs in one place, the pig industry that I have a problem with
and
I obviously have never tasted bacon.
Otherwise I would not care how gross it was in theory
I know that)
Oakland guy
In the bookstore
I walked in and asked for help
And he almost refused to show me the book
Before he went to look for it
And it had just been purchased
Maybe by someone he had approved of
But this is hardly imaginable
I didn’t let it get to me
This man did not seem loved much
And anyone this overprotective of and emotionally attached to retail items
Retail items
Mind you
He is paid to sell
Must have some issues going on
That have nothing to do with me.
But something in me
Asked
Is it because I am a girl?
Or 19?
Or smile too much to be smart enough to read it?
(this is surprisingly, at least to me, a common misconception
I am too classy to drop names, that is SO sophomore year, but I have read some books
I mean, I would like to think I have read some books
At least
There were a lot of them
And I read them
Or some of them
Or some of most of them and all of some of them and none of one or two which is a better average than most of those kids who paid so much for an education they didn’t even take advantage of)
But this guy with his mommy didn’t love me or whatever issues
(Oh snap she takes off the gloves, she gets rude 4 years later, in a library in los feliz of all places)
at the time just said sorry can’t help you
and part of me thought
smart guy maybe he could recommend some other type of good reading
and part of me thought
maybe I am not smart enough
I don’t need that book. I don’t need him to order it for me
and honestly,
the broke part of me couldn’t afford a new book at the moment
(this was the summer where I was trying to prove
more as an experiment than anything else
that I could live on my own,
which was really a joke because my parents paid for my
phone my gas my car and yet
with my eight dollars an hour I hence had no money.)
left the store with just one title from the used book bin
(Last Exit to Brooklyn actually, which I brought home and ryan said was depressing and it kinda was so I didn’t finish it.
Is that how it went?
I think I read the first few pages and moved on to Camus which he bought for me. Defaulting to what he thought was important to read.
I let him guide me on that intellectual path that year.
I never felt good enough although I knew I was.
It just never felt that way.
I always felt like I was fighting to be heard and seen and related to as worth
conversing with.
Only later did I realize that he would not have dated a stupid girl and his issues of sparseness, detachment and sterility
had nothing and I mean nothing to do with me.
A theme here if you notice
however
It takes a smile and a kiss and a
talk on a rainy night in the spring
a year and a half later after
India and
Russia and
Vienna and
breakups and screaming and lots of crying on a street in noe valley
to get that)
but I bought the book proudly
even though bookstore meany guy didn’t seem too impressed.
He was a little impressed
Just not too impressed
I had found it through searching the bin and I was happy with it.
Thought it looked good
(I bet it is. I should try it again. But there are so many other books out there to try, I am looking at five of them I pulled off the shelves just today.
What a wonder are libraries.
All of them? For free? And I can sit here and read them, or write beside them?
And then take them home? Delightful)
so I bought it for a couple quarters, about an hour’s worth of tips on a slow day
and took it home
and now I am older in this library in los feliz and my table neighbor has asked to look at my books.
HE was interested in what I was reading
He was EXCITED by the titles on the tower
And asked if I had read Kerouac and I said not yet
(side note: also the appropriate answer I have read to reply in Bali when asked if you are married)
and he said to read On the Road
which I was embarrassed to admit that I had not read
but he just seemed
excited that I might
and this makes a balance for me
between sad man in the bookstore on one end of the teetertotter
and this one here in the library
the balance of how to love something
indeed to dedicate ones time and energy and sprit to the pursuit of knowing all there is to know
and
on the other side
to share that joy with others with no expectation
that is a hard thing
a deeply respectable thing
a note:
(thank you mitch for assuming that I am smart enough, for spending hours with me while I ground and polished a confidence about thinking. and then a confidence about ordering those thoughts and putting them on paper or in pictures or people moving about a room. but paper, really try that paper, you always suggested. Time and again even though I hated it the most. Which means I struggled with it the most. And you stuck it out when my confidence and my heart and my brain would wrestle and and hide behind one another in those drag out fights called a thesis, called Artaud, called Ballard and Benjamin (at least I can say it correctly if nothing else). Called frat house singer with the band and writing papers about important things late into the night with makeup still on because all day this wrestling fighting I’m not smart enough to write this paper and you saying just let the paper come to the screen don’t fight it. It is there your fear has it pinned to the ground- your intellect is waiting just let your death clamp go and impress yourself- I swear you will impress yourself. Laura Herrington for telling me I was good with philosophy which I later changed to calling theory and showing me that being funny actually meant being very smart, a little jaded and always asking. Thank you to Cliff or Ms. Mcbride or Mrs. Steinberg I write with a smile as you are now, for coming into class one day and demanding that I be a writer when that is what I had dreamed you might tell me one day. The reason I would ever want to be a teacher, which I see in my path but have not begun to entertain or nurture, is because I want to hand girls books and tell quiet boys to speak their minds as you all did. I want to be patient with them as you were with me I want to repay to honor to humble myself to your lineage of selflessness)
to hand girls who smile
books heavier than handbags
to expect
to trust
the well
within
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