Goodbye Friends: A Book Love Story

I am one of those people who have "relationships" with books.  This is why I still have treasured childhood books in my possession.  They feel like friends that sustained me during difficult times.  They also bring back good memories - sitting in a tree in the woods across the street in a "tree-seat" I fashioned out of cloth my mother had and nails I took from my dad.  They allowed me to travel far and wide - not physically but emotionally and mentally.  I could never give these books away.

But, like some of my human friendships that changed over the years and I let go, I am preparing to do the same for some of my books.  I've been pulling books off shelves, holding them, staring at their covers, flipping through them, and weighing my relationship with them  Is it over?  Can I live with just the memory and not the actual book?  Some books were boxed then unboxed in indecision.  I've made progress, though.

I just want to simplify.  I look at my 4 bookshelves (4 being the result of a previous "downsizing") and have begun to ask, "Why?"  I don't want to hang on to "things" as much as I have in the past.  I've gotten better at getting my books from the library, too, even if I did bring some back from NYC and couldn't find shelf space for them.  OK, so that is my motivator, too...but there are more books going out than coming in.

At one point I was in the habit of writing the date of when and the location of where I read the book.  I also stuffed boarding tickets from flights, business cards from restaurants, bookmarkers from the stores from where I bought the book, etc. in them as reminders of time and place.  These have all been fun to rediscover.  I found a bookmarker from Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon.  I found a boarding pass to Ft Myers, Florida from Nov 24 - Nov 30, 2005.  In addition, I found an inscription in No Greater Love by Mother Teresa that read, "Completed reading on July 21, 1997 while rebuilding the Spring Hill A.M.E. Church in Dillon, South Carolina." (This church was destroyed by arson during a time when many African-American churches were burning.  While I am not a Quaker, I did this through the Washington Quaker Workcamps.  This is a great organization offering very meaningful and fulfilling experiences.)  I remember thinking this Mother Teresa book was an appropriate choice for the week-long workcamp.

The majority of my books are going to my local library.  The library will sell them and raise money for new book purchases.  My plan seems like good karma for me.  I've also picked out a few books to give to some friends and co-workers.  A lady I work with got two today.  Tonight I'm going to try to figure out which book (or books?) I might use for a BookCrossing experiment. 

Haven't heard of BookCrossing?  It's a neat concept; their website refers to their idea as "Catch and Release books."  As I understand it, you register your book and get an ID number.  Then you either put a label in the book (or something similar) and

Leave (the book) on a park bench, a coffee shop, at a hotel on vacation. Share it with a friend or tuck it onto a bookshelf at the gym -- anywhere it might find a new reader! What happens next is up to fate, and we never know where our books might travel. Track the book's journey around the world as it is passed on from person to person.

I heard about this several years ago but obviously have to read the website to get more details!  When I just checked the website as I prepare this blog, I was thrilled to see they have over 6 million books registered. 

This tracking reminds me of a book someone gave me 20 years ago.  About 6 people wrote their names and towns/states in it.  The book had made it up North from Alabama.  (This is one of those books I won't be giving away.)  Maybe my BookCrossing experiment will have similar results.  At the very least, I hope my book becomes someone's friend.