Confessions of a Book Abuser

Stillness. There it is. From rushing here and yon, planning, preparing, going, doing.... it is rare. If I look for it, I can find it. That's easy to say, now that my four children are grown. I can remember when a trip to the bathroom was fraught with perils beyond the door lock. You never knew what was going to happen and what you might miss, just because of your tiny escape to the bathroom. I used to keep a Reader's Digest in there, because you could read a whole book in about 20 minutes, if you were fast. So I learned to read lightning quick. And type like a woodpecker. And fold clothes like it was a contest. All those Wonder Woman skills that I remember seeing my Mama churn out in record time....I would ask her, "How do you do that so fast?" She'd say, "Lots and lots of practice." Eventually I became the skilled one because I had so much practice it was scary. There's not a lot of room for perfectionism when life is going on without you if you don't get all the mundane things whipped out in a jiffy.

On another note... (but talking about Reader's Digest made me think about it). The Library. Oh how I love the library and books. Back in the van-full-of-kids days, I'd get two armloads, one for me and one for our kids. We'd carry them home in a milk crate. I still like to read 4-5 books simultaneously, one in each bathroom, one beside the bed, one in the living room by my chair.... The number of bathrooms in our house has always dictated how many I might be reading at any given time. Oh yeah, and there's the tub adventures too. One day, years ago, I asked my brother to borrow a book and he wouldn't let me read it. He told me that he would only be buying me books from now on, and that I would not be borrowing any more from him. I was offended until he told me that the last book I borrowed came back looking like one of those old Reader's Digest Christmas trees we used to make out of folded books....not to mention that it also had bite marks on the cover. He checked and said that the bites were definitely human and definitely adult-sized. How can I help it if the book slips into the tub while I'm trying to balance my bowl of ice cream in the other hand, leading to two memorable events, one involving a hair dryer and the other resulting in bite marks? He's been true on his promise to buy me books, thankfully, and they're always the good ones. I relish reading them whenever and however I like. 

Back to the Library. Libraries would be just peachy if it weren't for those people they employ, Librarians. Librarians do not like me. I don't understand that. I exude much joy and happiness when I walk in there. Most people really do like me. I adore books, acres of them. And so do Librarians, correct? They are always nice when I first come in, and then they seem to get upset when I don't bring books back, when I make too much noise in there, and especially when I do bring the books back but they have bite marks on them. One day I brought back my truckload of books and they were quite late...so late that I had a fine of $12.10. I had $12 but not 10 cents. I assumed she'd be merciful (why would I think that?) and I took an hour to pick out another bucket of books, but when I failed to come up with the extra 10 cents, the Librarian wouldn't let me check them out. I went to my truck and dug around, asked a couple of people for a dime and then began begging on the sidewalk. There was no money to be found. Maybe those black helicopters hovering over the library weren't just looking for marijuana fields. She refused to let me take the books home. That was the day I began to wonder if it was time to move, since apparently my cover had been blown. I mean, how many times does a book actually get read? Surely only a few, right? Especially if they're paperbacks. They get read a couple of times then go in the 25-cent bin, where I buy them and then trade them in at the used book store for more books. Why would I keep most books? I'm only planning on reading them once, maybe, maybe twice, unless it's the Bible, so why all the hostility? Either way, when we moved to Villa Rica, I don't think the Librarians here got the memo, so somehow I have been able to remain incognito for three and a half years. Maybe it's because I've gained some Ninja-Library-Sneaking skills. I don't know and here I am now, risking my cover again. Meanwhile, if I call you a Librarian it probably means that you are much more reverent and obedient than I and I probably do not understand you. And of course you don't understand me. Since I don't actually call anyone that to their face, maybe it will go well and I won't get tarred and feathered soon. Many apologies to all decent and good Librarians that I may (and surely) have offended in this life. You are truly better than me and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I wish I could be that good. And please understand that I'm a very sarcastic person and that God's gonna get me for all my Library Sins. I don't think those are on the 7-worst-sins list, but I'm pretty sure they're still sins.

What is love?

Hollywood is just full of love. Bookstore shelves are filled with novels about it. The computer seems to have a permanent scrolling banner, proclaiming promises of how to find love with this or that singles site. The movies and TV have story after story, finding love, unrequited love, everlasting love. At least half the songs written are about it. At least.

But what is it?

I have been married a long time. 33 years at last count. I married a 6'2" hunk of a man with about 8% body fat, shoulders like a lumberjack and biceps like Hercules. He married some woman who looked like a model, with long blonde hair to her teeny-tiny waist, wearing 4-inch high Candies heels and a size 5 ring. Something happened along the way and those people can no longer be found. It's as if they vanished. A mirage in the desert. A few pictures in an album. Four babies now grown, three daughter-in-laws, five grandbabies (one in the oven!), lots of houses and jobs, and way too much cheesecake later....the years peel off like a waitress's orders at a barbecue pit. When we married in a fever all those years ago, we had no idea what we were in for. 

The movies and books that tell about "true love" are always some convoluted story that ends in someone running because the bus is about to leave or the train is departing or the boat is pulling away from the dock. Then there's hugging and kissing and happily ever after. And a lot of times, in real life, that stuff happens (though not usually). There's the flush of infatuation, all the etc.'s in between, and then a conclusion with some sort of commitment. But in the real world, over 50% of married couples don't make it. For a million different reasons. It breaks my heart when they don't make it, because there's always so much more that gets broken than all the "reasons."

Part of our dilemma is that real love, in the real world, doesn't have a screenplay, a plot and a soundtrack. Well, we do, but it might wreck your ears. Most of our problem is that we're a bunch of sinners and we mess stuff up. Real love involves blood, sweat, tears, vomit and worse. But the trial isn't the drama, it's the spaces in between. When everyone is tired, Mama's sick, Daddy's not making enough money, the laundry needs doing, the bathroom needs cleaning, the joints are aching, everybody's hungry, it's sticky and hot and 95 degrees and the air goes out, there's seventeen things to do today but only time for four of those things, and then Uncle Joe dies and we need to pack up and go to the funeral in Mississippi. Rev it up and start it all over tomorrow. Then there's the days where you've gotten up to go to work for the 10,000th time at an ungodly hour, worked, driven back and forth, come home, eaten and gone to sleep and nothing even remotely exciting has crossed your path. Day after day. Year after year. The same ole gal across the table. The same ole guy across the table. You can speak each other's sentences before they roll out. You know those rumply hands, those mangy toes, and the way he takes five decades to get out of the car because he's got to get everything arranged just so. Then there's the way she makes a mess at every stop and station along the way, with apparently no promise of food coming out of the kitchen yet and it's 6:30, and seems to have no regard to the fact that company's coming tomorrow, but she's managed to talk to 23 people today.

This is love. It is the "putting." Putting one foot in front of the other. Putting up with the snoring, the mess, the neurosis.  It is the remembering. Remembering why she liked him. Remembering why he liked her. None of us really change that much. Looking to the core of that person and what made us connect like two magnets (besides just the animal magnetism). Remembering that he is a person, he needs to be acknowledged, affirmed, respected. Remembering that she longs to be cherished, loved, and believed. 

And then it's just the miracle. For us, the miracle of God. Because only God could make these two sinners put up, shut up, and forgive when they need to. Two strong-willed, opinionated first-borns on opposite ends of the spectrum...who on a bad day and without the spirit of God might have the capacity to kill each other. A miracle because in the midst of a thousand different, boring spaces interspersed with homicidal tendencies, we found the grace of God. Rather, it found us.

The grace of God. That's all I got.