Do you know why I love my life?
Because as I sit here in my usual spot at Coach House, a fellow student looks at me, puzzled and asks, "Is that homework?" She motions to the 6 books splayed all over the table, the laptop on my lap and the earnest look on my face. To which I lovingly get to reply, "Not at all. This is just my life."
Yes. This is my life. Catcher, Eat Pray Love, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, Bell Jar, Streetcar, Writing Down the Bones...
I only wish I also had Anna Karenina and Ariel with me, also.
It's a day for falling in love again with the books who first fell in love with me.
It's a day for dreaming of poetry lines to turn into tattoos.
It's a day for indulging the inner Stella Kowalski by immersing myself in my battleworn copy of A Streetcar Named Desire. I wish I could say I don't relate to Stella at all. But I do. Deeply. All women do, in my opinion. Stanley Kowalski is the ultimate misogynist, and thousands of women all over the world would sign up in a heartbeat to stay devoted to him forever, because his sensuous charm and ruggedness outweigh his arrogance and sexism in every area. Sad, but true. Therein lies the true folly of women.
It's a day to continue in my dreamy delusions of a future romance with my own personal Holden Caulfield. (Because of my love for this character, I'm convinced that nobody I know is actually going to like the guys that I end up bringing home. What can I say? I like them bookish, misunderstood, multidimensional and highly intelligent. ;)
It's a day to be guided by the experiences and lessons learned and taught by Natalie Goldberg, Elizabeth Gilbert and Annie Dillard. Be it in the arena of writing, truth-seeking, or insect stalking.
It's a day for finding and underlining my favorite quotes in The Bell Jar. Ones just like this:
"From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
It's a day for rejoicing in the simple fact that I just got a job as a Haystack Interpreter for the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce, and I will be staying in my beloved hometown all summer long.
Hallelujah, amen and amen.
Fall in love with your favorite book today, lovers.
Spend some time loving your libraries.
All the good words and healthy hours of reading in the world,
Xx,
Hannah
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