#28 Let's Fold a Page

I love buying used books. The books have already lived a life before us. Traveled from bedroom to kitchen or across the world, or has been weathered and torn from inhabiting the depths of a woman’s purse. You can’t know what kind of life it has already lived, but it is now in your life and it has something to show you. Out of all the books in this world, this one is here with you now.

I love going to a thrift store, garage sale, or used book street sale and finding a book you didn't know you wanted, but was actually what you needed. Whether it was because the book made you cry like a baby, the author wrote about something you have never been able to explain, or simple connection to the characters, the place, or the time. It is quite magnificent. I am not always alone. We are not always alone. Even though we come into this world alone and leave it alone, it is the in between, the small, the eventful moments, lying between two extremes in time or space or state that remind us we are all connected. All things are delicately interconnected.  

Sometimes it is the magic of words whether spoken or written. My preference is the written. Do you ever read a used book and love a passage and you decide this is one of the passages you fold the page corner? Choosing to mark your book in that way is telling because once it's folded the indent is permanent. You can not go back. Hence, that passage, those words must mean a great deal. So you fold so you can go back to it later. As you fold your used book, you realize a fold crease already exists. You say “What is this?”. You smile. The person who read this before also felt called to this passage. They felt the need to make the jump in creasing that page. The book had something to say to both of you. You hope this person is okay because it was an impassioned passage. Then you think “Am I okay?” with big alert eyes. At that moment you think about the person who read this before you. The life before this one. Is he or she happy? Am I happy? Could me and this person be friends ?

If you have felt this, then I think me and you may be friends. We are connected. My hope is that reading this blog and being here is not technically what you wanted, but maybe what you needed. You can’t know everything about what kind of life I have lived so far, but I have so may thing to tell you and show you. Perhaps we fold a page together.