Writers Unbound

I try not to go into big office supply stores, because I get a little jittery. All those smooth, shiny pens. Rows of blank notebooks. Stacks of printer paper wink at me. I can’t take a credit card in there. It’s too dangerous.

But that’s nothing compared to me in a bookstore. My palms get sweaty, my breath short and rapid, and my eyes dart from row to row of luscious books. Which one to pick up? Which one to hold? Which one to flip through for this short, far too short space of time? I end up shuffling back to a table with a ten-high stack, knowing I’ll probably not get through the first before my coffee is gone.

I can never read them all. I can never write about them all. Even if I could “catch up” somehow on the printed words that wait for me, the new amount being produced every day would soon have me drowning again. And add magazines, newspapers, journals, and I’m not even mentioning online media. I love all these fluffier bringers of the written word, but it’s the books that get me.

This is why I got an English degree instead of a Music degree. I can go a day without singing, but not without words, reading them and writing them. And music, for me, is another form of reading or writing. It’s the lyrics that matter most when I listen, or the stories that are told by the instruments.

In the bookstore, I try to keep my table stack to five or less these days so I have a chance to actually flip through them all. I still wish for more time, even though my hand is shaking after a couple of hours of scratching out notes, ideas, story lines, and article sketches while holding up a fat book and imbibing strong coffee.

Maybe someday I’ll open a bookstore. Even if I can’t read them all, I could be near them.