it all happened because i forgot to get dog food on the way home and the sweetie and i wandered down to the corner store after dinner to get some. really, though, it started last week after classes when three girls wander in to visit. there are a few other students there and another teacher. the girls stop by sometimes, always together, a small flock. one of them asks about a word and i haul the second half of a massive dictionary over to a desk so she can find out about it.
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| ring molecules |
i don't know right up until then that she is one of us. the sort of kid who stands in a classroom after classes are over and most students have gone home, staring at the bible-paper pages of a dictionary older than her parents, swooning over the illustrations. she hovers over the book and from time to time calls out discoveries. her friends look up and smile. the other students, scattered around the room doing work, look up and smile. the other teacher and i smile. from time to time she finds something they're willing to look at, too, her friends.
we should get you a dictionary for your birthday, one of them says, laughing. it is not the laughter you'd think, though. not the usual laughter of tenth grade girls that slides out of them like a slap, meant to hurt. it is the laughter of someone watching a kitten with string and wishing she had more string to offer. she is serious about the birthday dictionary. the girl reading looks up, eyes glittering, and points to an image on the page. her friends fall into the page with her.
i am thinking about the discussions we've been having in class about technology, about how children get information. this other teacher and i spent some time trying to explain to the children the idea of an encyclopedia and i have been pining all week for the set my parents had when i was a child. i even mention to the sweetie that i should call the parents and see whether they've got the books stored somewhere in their terrifying attic.
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| interest rates. interesting. |
and then i forget the dog food. so we put on our shoes and lasso the dog and step out into the nicest evening we've had all year. on the way back, a block from home, i see four stacks of books on the sidewalk. abandoned books. free books. the most delicious kind. when we get close enough to see that they are, in fact, a magnificent set of encyclopedias, my chest tightens. i can smell the old bookness of them. the sweetie knows what is in my head and he says no just to get the word out there.
no we cannot drag thirty or so books home when we're also dragging along a lassoed hound and a bag of dog food and a pint of lemon sorbet. our arms aren't big enough.
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| chess match |
i do not pout. i do not sulk. i am too miserable to do either. i know if i stop looking at the books they will disappear, so i just stare at them. i can feel my insides crumbling. i can see the waste of leaving them there. but before i die of my booklessness, the sweetie hands over the dog and the food and leaps around the corner. now, this is where i may have to explain a little about brooklyn parking. unless you are fancy, you park on the street. we are not fancy. if you park on the street, you have to move your car at least once (usually two or three times) during the week to allow for street cleaning. our car is visible from the corner where i am standing, heart-wilted, with a brown dog and a bag of dog food and ever softer sorbet.
the sweetie is in the car before i realize what he is doing. he sees a parking space that will keep us from having to drive around for twenty minutes trying to find a space later in the week. and this is nice. what is so much better than nice, though, is that the space is right there directly in front of four stacks of books.
right there. he pulls the car around the corner and snugs it up into the space. and there is our car with the big, empty trunk, steps from those books. he takes the dog and the food, tells me i have to carry my own books. i grab them and slide them into the car and he looks along the spines, counts to see what's there. all twenty six volumes. an index. and four yearbooks. the inside of my head is full of sparks. my chest is full of birds. could it get any better?
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| potash surplus |
the oldest yearbook is from the very first year i wandered around on this earth. 1968. it is clear these books have been waiting there on that sidewalk just for me. and the next year is 1969. and then 1970. the fourth book, of course, is 1971. the year the sweetie came to the world. we settle the books into the car and i pull out the 1968 and 1971 books to take in. the sweetie locks the car and shakes his head. he laughs a little and he is not at all surprised. he has known all along we would come upon just these books sometime and we would have to take them. even when he said no he knew this.
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| mentors, men, mustaches |
you get everything you want, he says. and this is true. the things i pine for seem to stumble into my path fairly quickly after i begin my pining. there is nothing i can do about this so i sit on the couch with the sweetie and the dog and i open the book that says 1968. there is a chart of all the minerals produced for each state in the union. doctor king looking toward the sky. a lockheed c-5a galaxy dwarfing the rest of the world. janis joplin, described as a "tough, plain-spoken girl, who drinks hard, lives hard, and gives the impression that like an operatic heroine she may burn herself out before she ever grows up". a graphic in blue of the three theories of the universe: steady state, oscillating and big bang. a photo of a woman sitting behind newly designed "safety pillows" for cars- the same pillows that would keep my own parents alive and moving around more than forty years later, just last week. a chart of the world production of agricultural commodities in thousands, including grains, fibers, dairy products, meat, oilseeds, fruit and beverages. there is a heartbreaking image of bobby kennedy in an open car, charming the camera, surrounded by black men, one with an arm around his waist holding him steady. it is a photo taken maybe the day i was born. maybe a day or two after.
i do not know how anyone could give up so much but i am grateful for the gift.
