Why I’ll Never Get Rid of My Books

Some things you are meant to keep

I’ve always been lost in words. My mother gave me a book of Major English Romantic Poets when I was twelve. Keats, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Longfellow.

When I was sixteen, I found Shakespeare. At seventeen, I found Thoreau. Eighteen, Walt Whitman. Nineteen, Orwell. Then Hemingway and Carver and Cisneros and Bellow and Kerouac. Then I stopped. It just went away.

I had spent four years teaching high school English because I felt compelled to inform people of the power of Gatsby’s light.

Luminous, romantic and out of reach. It tore my heart up, teaching. I spent more time in the principal’s office than my kids.

Three years or so ago, for reasons I can’t even recall, decided I was going to reduce my belongings and live with less. I spent a whole night going through my things and boxing up all my books. I tidied.

I had told myself I didn’t need these anymore. What could I possibly do with three books of literary criticism on Flannery O’Connor? A friend, who…