The Book

I sat by the fire contemplating what I was about to do, hands resting in my lap, eyes set upon the flames. My decision was galvanized by the smell of smoke and the illumination of wood. A choice thoughtfully made, now executed. This relationship spanning some twenty-years, forever changed me.

I received a blank book for my sixteenth birthday from my mother. At first, being like most teenagers. I was a little perturbed by the gift.
Why couldn’t she just buy me something like a new shirt or some records, I wondered? As I carefully unwrapped the book, I noticed an urgent, sort of pleading look in my mom’s eyes.

“You like it don’t you?”Speaking rapidly, as if she wanted to get the explanation out faster than I could unwrap the book itself.

She said, “I bought it at the Renaissance Faire. It’s handmade and leather bound. Those pages are parchment, and look at the binding, hand stitched!” My mother was obviously infatuated with the book.

I, on the other hand did my best to fake it.

“It’s beautiful,” I replied as I held it up to my nose to smell the leather binding.
It was a beautiful book. As I turned the pages, I began to appreciate her adoration for the object. The pages looked stiff and new, made out of a buttery velum with an uneven golden color to them. The brown leather felt soft and smelled rich.
My mom let me bond with my book for a minute or two and then she said,
“I thought that you could use it for a journal or a diary or maybe to write some of your poems in.”

I looked at her and our eyes met. I smiled again and now with truthful words I said, “thank you, I love it.”

As the years passed, the book and I traveled some painful highways together. Later that sixteenth year when I packed my bag and left my mother’s house for the last time, the book was the one gift I did not leave behind. I wrote often through those years. Looking back on those pages I can see the reflection of my life through those young eyes. I wrote my poems, secrets and adventure. I wrote of my friends and boyfriends. I wrote about my first sexual experiences and my dreams. I would read my past pages over and over. It was like a mantra. This is where I’ve been, this is where I’m going.

I wrote when I feel in love, and then I quit writing. I can tell you now about that time, but I have no resource to back up these memories. I only have the memories. I felt totally immersed in my love for this man. There was no room for writing, only the love. I was content to stare into my lover’s eyes and read them; he was my book. I told him everything. I had no secrets. He knew them all. We talked and planned. Our life was my poetry. We married and had a daughter.

When my daughter was born, I wrote in the book. Again I was in love and I wrote about it in exactly that way. Physically bonded to a beautiful little human being, I filled pages with my fascination and adoration. Then my life ran away with me. Once again I quit writing and the turbulence and chaos of the motherhood years began. More babies came, I worked and cleaned.

My lover was now gone, replaced by someone I didn’t know and didn’t like. Feeling stranded on a deserted island of hatred, I began writing once again.

The writing looked different now and so did the book. The soft brown leather now stained by oatmeal and squashed bananas. Some of the pages were carefully taped back in place after being torn out by small eager hands. Unexpected artistic interpretations scribbled by crayons and blue ink pens now decorated the pages. The additions delightful and yet they saddened me.

Nothing was mine. “I can’t have anything for myself!” I shouted at the man.
“Why won’t you help me?” I begged, demanded and screamed for him to see me, comfort me, and love me. He could not, so I screamed, “I hate you.”

I wrote! The self-pity and resentment ran onto the pages in rivers. I had it all right there on paper, the documentation of his failings and mistreatment of me. Every wrong would send me to my book to write. After reading back several pages, I would begin with renewed rigor. Yes I was right; he was wrong. I knew no other side, just my side.

His cruelty seemed incomprehensible. In my book he was a monster. He was responsible for all of my misery. He was the cause for my insecurity and my shortcomings. I hated him on paper and the reasons were plentiful. Eagerly I penciled in the exact date of every transgression. He grew to be a very powerful figure in my book. Someday I would run, someday I would cheat, someday I would divorce that worthless bastard. In my book I would eventually kill him.

Life on the other hand, progressed differently than my book. We raised our children, celebrated our life and mourned our losses. We clung to each other in hard times and loved each other through the good ones.

As time crept by I began feeling distressed about the book. My concern grew into fear. What if someone were to read the book? The words so purposefully placed now seemed crazy and scary.

Without realizing it, I had matured. I understood the book and my need for it. The book saved my life, my marriage and my sanity. I hadn’t written in the book for some time and the need for it had passed. I pondered giving up the soft brown friend, moving on from it. I was ready to leave the past behind and forgive the man for being human.

One day in September after reading the length of it, cover to cover, I burned the book in the fireplace. I watched it curl and flicker, worn and comforting pages a blaze. I resisted a panicky urge to retrieve it from the pyre. It was gone.

I never regretted the decision I made that fall morning. I can’t remember which birthdays he forgot or what particular insults he imparted; or those very painful years when I was young and overwhelmed, unable to deal with my own anger. It is over, the book and me.

I did enjoy the look of disappointment on my youngest daughter’s face when she unwrapped her birthday book instead of new CDs.