For as long as I can remember, our library shelf has chronicled our goals, dreams, and aspirations. The books are piled up on the radiator and sometimes spread out to the stairs nearby. It’s not even that we necessarily read all these books; it’s more the thought that counts.
There will be books on any of our given interests-my mom will always have out a couple of cookbooks or history tomes and my brother his science books. My brother and me will usually have out a couple of flashy looking sci-fi or fantasy books. But if someone in the house is getting a job, there will be a stack of resume or networking books. Learning about something at school? There will be a couple of books about whatever topic that is. If something medical is going on in the family, you can bet there will be some books out on it, including a couple of dodgy looking alternative medicine ones. There will be anything from knitting to food science to books about writing-and of course a bit of fiction.
It used to drive me crazy. When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why my mom would get out all these books that she wasn’t ever going to read-cause even though the books were taken out with good intentions, there wouldn’t ever be enough time to read all of them. Then when I started college, I would take out huge mounds of computer books-languages, building apps and websites, operating systems-maybe I read about a tenth of them. But there was just something about having the stack in my room-maybe it was the potential? Or the comfort of books being around? On a free afternoon, I’d sit with a stack and try to skim through a couple but there definitely wasn’t enough time to ever really read them through.
So now I’ve got my own pile that mimics my family’s radiator but to the tune of my own interests. Sometimes cookbooks or craftbooks, organization, programming, and of course fiction books sit piled next to my bed. Some of them I’ll read, maybe some of them I’ll skim, and some will get returned to the library never read but taken out again to sit among the pile. I guess it’s kind of the luxury of being surrounded by books? To be honest I’m not really sure, but I have a feeling that one day my own kids are going to be looking at a shelf or book basket wondering why all these books are in the house when only a quarter of them get read.
Shana-- I love this post!!! When we were kids my mom would get about 15 books on any given subject as soon as anyone expressed the slightest bit of interest. Thinking of becoming a doctor? Here are a bunch of books on how to get into medical school. Interested in body building? Soda-making? Becoming a world-class painter? Here are some books I bought for you! After spending years overwhelmed in books, I realized she's just trying to show she loves and cares for us...and, looking at the stack of books I constantly bring home from the library....I'm turning into my mother!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Was there a time in your life that you wanted to be a soda-maker? :) The funny thing is that there's an evil side to this as well. I remember when my brother was going through a phase where he wanted to learn German and my mom wasn't so pleased about it, she got out a ton of books and kind of exhausted his enthusiasm, quickly killing the phase. It was a brilliant bit of reverse psychology there.
DeleteVery clever ploy!
DeleteActually, my mother is now currently into making her own natural sodas, using the soda stream. Before that, she was into making health food smoothies with all sorts of green things going into them.