It's just a little crush

I used to worry that maybe I liked books more than they liked me. That they were just flirting while I was falling hard, allowing me no more than a glimpse of the odd beauty coiled in an unexpected phrase, enough to keep me panting behind, while secretly going all the way with the hipster girl up the block, the one with the polka head band and the yellow lunch box.

It felt like I needed to read them more than they needed to be read by me. There are plenty of readers out there and some books, some of the classics, have been read so many times I wonder if they're just tired of it. But I would have been stranded without their company -- on the BART, on the muni, out for coffee, over breakfast on Saturday, in the afternoon on Sunday, after dinner, before bed. Stranded in my own head with only the things I've seen and done and heard to keep my mind off my mind.

I held them close.

I introduced them to my friends, set them up with articles and essays I thought they might click with.

I alphabetized them, made lists of their titles, quoted their epigraphs.

For a while, I even thought I was ready to make a real commitment. I wondered aloud in their presence about becoming an English professor, a journalist, a book reviewer, even an editor. I looked to them for encouragement. I fanned their pages. Nothing.

I guess I worry that I'll lose them, that one day I'll turn to the faded blue bookshelf in the bedroom and find nothing of comfort, of beauty, of weight. Like that episode of the Twilight Zone where the poor book-loving bank clerk finds himself half-blind and alone, forever. Even though he's surrounded by books, he has no way of reaching them. They're lost to him.

It might seem odd to talk about books so stubbornly as if they were people. But then I consider the attachment I feel, the fear of loss. The way I talk about characters and wonder about them and worry about them; they are the people I spend the most time with. And, just like a person, as soon as I stepped back and gave them room to breathe, they were there. They returned to me in waves: Paul Madonna, Alison Bechdel, Roddy Doyle. E.M. Forster and Ford Madox Ford. c.d. wright. Luke asked me to read Anne Carson out loud. Zadie Smith had a piece in the NYR.

I still don't know if we'll ever go steady, books and I, if we'll make a real go of it. But I know they love me, even if they can't say it. And that's enough for now.