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| "Neverending Books" by Troy Holden |
I've been thinking about this a lot since that conversation with my mother, and the mere idea fills me with such joy, that I think I'd like to do it sooner than in my old age. In fact, much sooner. I don't know when --I think I just have to let life happen and see when it would be a good time to do this.
I used to think a used bookstore was a silly fantasy, and a bad idea because it could not even make enough money to run itself. I've seen wonderful used bookstores up and close in more than one occasion because they simply can't make enough money to survive. But then I look at the ones that DO, and think: what makes them able to do so?
Take, for example, Downtown Book Center Inc, the only bookstore in Downtown Miami. It opened its doors in 1965 and is still going strong. I have only seen this bookstore in passing (I plan to drop in for a better look tomorrow if the weather allows) but I think the main secret to their success is location: they are on a very busy street in the middle of Downtown Miami, with pedestrians going by non-stop.
This isn't Mike's case, and yet the Paperback Book-X-Change is never empty. It is never full, either --not that it could accommodate too many people at once-- but I've never been there and not seen at least one person in the store with him, and several come and go during the time I am there. Who knows --he might not be able to keep the store if he didn't also live in it, but the fact is that he's doing something right and the store, in its own way, thrives.
Just the idea of having my own little bookstore feels me with a joy that I can only compare to the thrill I got when I began to fantasize about making a living as an artist. Whenever I am inside an used bookstore I am also reminded of the old library at the boarding school I used to go to as a child.
This school had once been an orphanage, and the library had been locked for God knows how many years. During my only, miserable year as a boarder I was friendless, lonely and missed my mother terribly. I was the very definition of homesick, with an emphasis on the "sick" part. I did not want to eat or do anything. Life was horrid --but sometimes I found relief in a book.
Everyone knew how much I loved to read; I was regularly scorned, congratulated or teased for it, because of how much I preferred the company of books to that of my schoolmates. Perhaps this, or pity, is what prompted the principal to give me the old key to those library doors. I was told no one else could have them, no one else could go in there with me, or borrow books from it.
I will never forget (and have probably mentioned it here before) holding that cold key in my fist, looking up at the principal in disbelief, and then, after thanking her, running down the hall like a crazy person (and hearing her yell, "No running in the halls!" behind me.)
I really should look this woman up and send her a letter, because she effectively gave to me what is possibly the most magical day of my life. The library had an arched double door, with green chipped pain and glass panes so dusty you could barely see the inside of the dark room. I remember going in to a scene of chaos: dusty books on dusty shelves, cow-webs, dusty books on the floor with dusty footprints on them. So much dust everywhere. I was at once outraged (for then, like now, I tended to humanize books and this neglect seemed unforgivable even to my young mind) and enchanted: what book-loving little girl wouldn't be, when given the key to a library that seemed to have been all but abandoned and looked like a perfectly magical place in which I could escape everyone who teased me for my glasses, my stuttering and my anti-social ways?
It was here that I first became acquainted with the Countess of Segur, Mark Twain, Louisa M. Alcott, Robert Lawson, and so many other excellent writers. I doubt that I would be the same person I am today if it hadn't been for that key, that place, those books. When, a few months later, the library was officially reopened, I was distraught! My kingdom was no longer my own, my refuge was taken from me. Or so I felt. I was rather a selfish child then, though not in a malicious way. I did not know anyone else who loved books as I did and truly believed that no one else would enjoy them as I did. I am sure now that I was wrong.
But I digress. Every time I go into a used bookstore now, I am strongly reminded of this little library full of old children's books. And suddenly an image comes to my mind, of myself in a little bookstore of my own, neither too busy nor too quiet, merrily working on my manuscripts while sitting at the register with a cat at my feet, waiting for new costumers to come in.
My vision is admittedly very romanticized; an used bookstore is a business like any other. But I think used bookstores manage to fill a certain need in people that seek either the atmosphere or the bargains, which big box stores will never be able to satisfy in quite the same way. This must be why, in our age of Kindles, nooks, Amazon.com and stores like Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million, used book stores refuse to die off.
The situation may have changed by the time I am able to make my dream into reality, or life may simply take me into a different direction. But for now, I am taking this idea from my "Daydreams" box and filing it under "Future Plans."
I just may end up doing it.
-Marina
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