My mind, doing what my mind does, swung from idea to idea without landing on anything. I had just finished reading a short piece, “Old Immortality,” by the poet Mary Ruefle. It’s a story about the Earl of Staffordshire who wanted to be a writer, but instead of self-publishing his book, he had it inscribed on pottery by one of the finest potters in the world – one page per plate. For his readership, he would host elegant dinner parties where his guests would be served their course, one by one, only after they read their assigned page, plate by plate. After reading the story, I decided to look it up to see if there was any truth behind it. The first search result was about a poet and potter who decided to inscribe Ruefle’s story on a set of Staffordshire style plates for her. Neat.
I wasn’t ready to read another poem (or story). I scrolled Twitter. I looked at the stack of books next to me at the edge of the sofa. Thinking I would re-shelve it, I picked up the book by Stephen Dobyns that I had just finished. I enjoyed it, and because I liked pieces of every poem, I hadn’t dogeared any of the pages or underlined any of the lines. Being done with it, I began to wonder what use this book serves. Would I ever come back to it? I began thinking, again, about this notion of reading and tribes and shared experiences. Unless I part with it, this book will become part of the “stuff” that either my daughter or partner or someone will have to throw out or give away when I die. They’ll have no idea how it (or most of my possessions) related to my life. Whether it was sacred or loathed or just another book among several boxes of books. That feels like it’s a shame… but then again, that’s the problem with life and legacy. No one can possibly appreciate or understand our inner workings the way we do and when it’s over, everything gets tossed in the dustbin of history.
Because I was thinking this, and because I was thinking about the many books my father owns (that I will likely throw away or donate when that task falls on me), I began to think about my complicated relationship to books and reading. I was a strong reader when I was young, but I rebelled against books and reading because it was the thing my father valued most in life. I can remember squirming with boredom as we spent (what felt like) hours in the bookstores in the mall. I failed my senior year of high school English because I didn’t want to write/present a poem to the class. Yet, I majored in English (with a focus on creative writing), started a literary journal, worked at an academic bookstore in college, went into publishing where I eventually worked with one of the most well-read literary minds in the world, etc. etc. I suppose the discomfort comes from being told I’m good at something (writing) that I’ve spent much of my life rebelling against.
All of this “thinking” happened in a matter of seconds. Having forgotten about re-shelving the book, I got up from the sofa to get my computer so that I could write about my complicated relationship with reading and books (a subject that I have been trying to tie together with my struggles with attention and self-discipline in a long-winded draft elsewhere). I paused at the dining room table and folded a piece of junk mail to throw away. This was when I started to criticize myself for being easily distracted. Had I walked into the kitchen to throw away the junk mail, I might have also stopped to do the dishes. All of which would be far more practical than going down these two rabbit holes. One train of thought that isn’t quite sure if I’ve been rebelling against my father my entire life or trying to please my father my entire life. Another train of thought suggesting that none of these things (these books, these experiences, these efforts) matter because most of us are never remembered one or two generations removed… we’re all just trees falling in the woods and because we have egos the size of small horses, we’re desperate to know that we made a sound.