I’m holding this book in my hands. “House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende. It’s a used copy that I bought at Green Apple Books in San Francisco on Clement. I love finding books there. I love old used books. I love finding notes in the margins. I love finding old receipts stuck inbetween the pages. Maybe a forgotten photograph used as a bookmark.  I almost returned a library book with a polaroid in it once. Sometimes I wish I just had, hoping the person who found it would have gotten some joy from that moment captured in time. My friend’s smiling face and sparkler in hand.

This is the same reason I love library books and libraries in general. These places that hold so much of what I love. They are these places filled with secrets. Somewhere in there are books that could become your next favorite and will change your life. You don’t even know it yet because you haven’t even found them yet.  Sometimes the thought makes me feel like I can’t breathe. It’s a little daunting and scary. What if you never find them? How long will it take you? Will you ever have the patience and time in your life to read through enough books to actually find them? But it never stops me from trying.

Is that what this book will be? Is this book going to change my life? The thing is, I know it will. I remember when Cynthia recommended it to me. It was the first day I met her. When she was just throwing all sorts of things at me and I was taking it all in because I was starving for it. I was starving for inspiration and for someone to fill up my life with meaning.  I knew from the moment I met her I was going to write about her, because I did. I wrote about her immediately. Most of what I remember is because of that. She actually told me once to write everything, to just write it all down. I just thought I’d have so much more to say, so much more to tell you about her. Not just all of these bits and fragments.

So this book becomes impossible to read. I can’t do it because what would be left after this? What else would there be left for her to give me? What else could I tell you about her after this book? I want to pretend she’s still here waiting to bestow some knowledge on me. This book is that. Just sitting there waiting to give me something she wanted me to have. It holds my place in time. It keeps me from moving forward. Because I need her. I need her to shake the dust from my bones again.  And maybe because I know when it comes down to it I’m the true end to her story. And I’m just not sure where my story goes and I don’t want to let her down.

Its time to read that book.