My first true loves …
BOOKS
Books make me happy.
Really, they make me more than happy.
They enrich my life in so many ways.
They inspire me. They are my friends. They are my comfort. They are my pleasure.
Once I rented a room in a sketchy part of L.A. based on the home’s abundance of books.
I had found a card tacked near the bathroom of an artsy coffeehouse advertising the room for rent.
The day of my appointment to view it, I hesitantly walked up the house’s stone steps, wary because of the rough neighborhood around it. Through a double dead-bolted screen door with thick bars, I saw a small woman with long red hair and a miniskirt vigorously vacuuming the living room rug.
Beneath a fringe of red bangs, she wore dark sunglasses. A cigarette hung from one corner of her mouth.
After a few minutes of knocking and ringing the doorbell, she noticed me.
Inside the front door, a small living room had an upright piano against one wall. On the opposite wall hung an art piece her famous father had made. It was the silhouette of a shapely woman made from spray painted silver cigarette butts.
As she showed me around, the woman never removed her dark glasses.
I had stepped into another world.
What ultimately sold me were the words that came out of her mouth as she directed me to a bedroom door:
“And this is our nonfiction library.”
Bookshelves from floor to ceiling lined every wall.
By the time she directed me to the fiction library (two minutes later), I was writing out a check.
I moved in that weekend.
It was an easy move. I had been staying with a friend and all my belongings were already in my car.
My large upstairs bedroom engulfed my few belongings.
On one wall I set up my radio, stacking CDs beside it on the floor. I propped a few of my religious themed red candles with saints and the Virgin Mary on the window sills.
My clothes hung in the closet above a footlocker that contained a few mementos.
I placed my roll-up futon bed in the middle of the floor. Right near where my head would lie, against the floor on one wall, I lined up all my books — Anais Nin, Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Isak Dineson, Baudelaire, Tom Wolfe, Umberto Eco, Truman Capote, Hermann Hess, Ayn Rand, S.E. Hinton — so they would be the first things my eyes saw upon awakening.
On My Nighstand (& floor)
In the living room
In the living room
I loved your post and story about your funky, book-friendly LA apartment. Books are lifelong companions. They are literally in every room in my house (that includes the bathroom where I have shelves that ought to house towels or something more bathroomy)
What a fun story about your younger days! I’m a book person, too. Like Jefferson said, I cannot live without them. In fact, as I started reading at a very young age, before I began kindergarten, I can’t remember NOT reading. Lately, I’ve been on a purge to get rid of books that I will never read or use again as it has gotten out of hand. I love seeing what’s on other peoples shelves – I noticed Little Women on one of yours, a favorite from my childhood. I’ve been organizing my new study and have planned on photographing my bookshelf with inspirational books that I now have regular access to (they were in the basement).
I absolutely loved reading about your old LA apartment. I love books too. My fiancé built floor to ceiling shelves for me to neatly house them because I have so many. I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at your photos because I recognized so many of the same titles sitting on my own shelves.
Sometimes I think those moments when we are young, just starting out and on our own and (let’s face it) kind of poor are the most authentic moments of our lives. I loved hearing the story about your apartment. I had a little studio apartment with a green Pier 1 futon and remember the days fondly. And I also can see the passion you have for books. It’s nice to see you still have it and pursue reading like you do.
I blogged about this very thing the other day. If I walk into a home and I don’t see an abundance of books, I quite literally feel uncomfortable and lost. Lots of books? Instantly comforted.
You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. — C. S. Lewis
Angela! Why don’t I know about your blog!?!
Stephanie — i think you nailed it with the word authentic
Annie, Cherie and Karin — thank you : )
I rented my current place partly because one room had a huge floor-ceiling bookcase. Yep- it’s full now!
Your post made me laugh. When I was in my late teens I moved across the country (twice) and my favourite books had to come with me. As an adult I have moved over a dozen times and each time I’ve had to have my books. I’ve got so many favourites that I can’t get rid of. Besides which I reread old favourites all the time
I told my husband just two days ago that as soon as more of the kids leave (we have seven) And we have a bedroom free I am turning one onf the rooms into a library! Books…can’t live without them
Carolyn