The past couple of weekends we painted the upstairs hallway (well, my husband painted while I helped prep and then told him the spots he missed), which meant moving furniture, the most daunting piece being The Bookcase. It isn't that huge, but it contains books that range from a 1929 Alice Through the Looking Glass that belonged to my mother, to Number the Stars bought for my own children, plus various Nicholas Sparks (mine and my oldest daughter's) and My Body My Self (I won't embarrass the proud owner of that one). That bookcase contains the complete Tolkien series, one baby book (I have three kids, so I wonder why only one? And where are the others?), CS Lewis, The Brothers Grimm, many Beatrix Potter mini books, and dozens of other treasures. These treasures represent periods of my life that are particularly poignant. I was changed forever by Fahrenheit 451 and the high school teacher who assigned it. As a teacher and mother I read and cried through Bridge to Tarabithia. Again as teacher and mother I marveled at my youngest daughter's fascination with dark tragedies, but remember how challenging it was to get her to read at all. I remember being delighted in my son's development as a reader when hooked on Watership Down (finally hooked on reading!) and proudly watching him as an independent thinker choose Michael Moore's various takes on the political world as we know it.
I hesitated, cleaning out the shelf of the "fluff" my mom lent me to read, and making a pile of my own children's books to add to my classroom library. Which of these may have been instrumental in my oldest daughter's development of world view or a writer's eye and mind? Did some of these have remnants of my mother's life philosophy or enjoyment of historical fiction (a passion we share)? My father had the habit of ordering books and copying magazine articles that reflected his philosophy, one for each of his daughters, and sometimes his grandchildren. I have a copy of the last of those thoughtful purchases with a note clipped to it in his handwriting that says "Janice". It's a gift from him, probably his last. I haven't read it yet, but it went into the pile of "to read".
Yes, books are the score that plays in the background through the stages of my life. The children's party planning books are alongside the master's degree books, each equally important, telling the tales of my many lives. I clean away some space on the shelves and wonder what books I will add. I'm looking forward to carving out time for the "to read" books that are on the shelf, easily within reach, and wonder what my children will think when they go through those shelves of my life.
