endpapers, flyleaves & blanks

Yesterday I had a delightful lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant with my younger son and our friend Lawrence. After agreeing that curry might be evidence of a benevolent God, we were discussing the books we were reading, like we do. I mentioned that I'd started a Vonnegut biography. "I've only read the first chapter, but I know it's going to be good, because I had to look up *two* words on the first page! That never happens!"

Both fellas were sitting across the table from me, and Lawrence said, in his adorable English accent, "That's the great thing about the Kindle, you can just poke the word and *poof* you get the definition!" At exactly the same moment, they both did a poke with their index finger at an imaginary Kindle.  "Poke!"

I don't have a Kindle myself; I do my reading the old fashioned way. While the poke method sure seems appealing, I like holding a pencil when I read. And I'm reading much more in the last year or so since we have fallen into a pleasant nighttime routine. On the nights I'm not working a concert or lecture, after dinner we clean the kitchen, I unplug the internet, and while my son practices the piano, I settle into bed with a book.

The other night my son peeked in my room and asked what I was reading, and I told him, a biography of Vonnegut, and he said, "Who's he?" Before I could answer, he said, "Another dead white guy?" I protested that he was much more recently dead than most of the guys I read about. Ever since I mentioned that I thought I ought to read more living brown people, men and women, my son teases me about being a racist. So I knew what was coming. He shook his head and chuckled as he tramped off to the piano.

So I had to write that down, right in the book, with the date, and set that scene.  I love that my reading of Vonnegut will be tied up with those memories, the poke, the "dead white guy" exchange. And after he's off to college, I might happen across those notes and remember that night.

Now, my older son has seizures when he sees how I desecrate my books. Last summer when he was home from college, he tried to read my copy of Anil's Ghost, by "that guy whose name I can't pronounce," and I caught him unfolding my dogeared pages. 

"Stop!  What are you doing?!" 

"But, Mom, why?  Why do you do this?" 

"I want to remember the all those sentences and passages that are so heartbreaking and lovely!"

His eyes were a little wild.  I don't know whether he was able to finish reading the book after that conversation.  Poor guy.  But I'm going to keep doing it, folding down corners and circling and drawing arrows and exclamation points.  And I love those blank pages in books; I use them to write down definitions of unfamiliar words or to jot down notes about the crazy things I overhear if I happen to be reading in a public place.  After my friend Michael mentioned that he sketches in his books so folks don't know what he's up to, I'm definitely going to start drawing in mine, too. I want my library to be full of treasures and puzzles for my grandchildren to find.  Or for a stranger when she picks up a copy at the Goodwill.  A little gift.  A time capsule.  And I want them to think, "Damn. This was one funny chick!"

So, go.  Go fill up those empty spaces with memories and scenes and minutia.