Shakespeare And Company, Paris, FranceJust recently, trips to the bookstore have become more frequent. Such a place, the bookstore. I view it as potential energy. I view it as a pile of secrets. The feeling I get when I peruse bookshelves is unmatched in my estimation. There is nothing quite like it. I chase the high of my first visit to a bookstore every time I return. A bit of a voyeur in this realm, I like to watch others as they look for their hit. Watching the search. Others, populate places I don’t currently browse, hoarding all that potential energy. The sections hold sway over each taste differently. The staff: Guardians. Guardians of the books, the words, the author’s intentions and apathies. Some staff have “the knack”, and know to interlope at the absolutely correct time and the absolutely correct way. These are the champions that guide us about the maze, and can recall the most obscure with a gleam and a flourish. Others, not up to the task, bramble about with good intentions, but fall short. They are there for relation, so we know the exceptional. Guardians, purveyors of print, if you will? Much like the authors themselves, looking to succeed after a fashion and entombed in the humanity of their abilities. The really great staff know; the others learn from them if lucky. Freshly printed, remainders, first runs, reprints, dog-eared and yellow, the books fall under the senses of touch, and smell. A good worn book smells of earth and sweat and human compassion. It absorbs the energy and emotions of the reader engaged in fulfilling the social contract between themselves and the author.The others senses work transitively as vision begets speech. The speech of characters delivers the ramblings of their creator. Sound, the only sense not placated, resides in the imagination. No matter the doorway internal, all find a place on my egalitarian shelves.
I consume pages.
I consume words.
No law can shape or channel my necessity to consume the potential energy laid about the bookstore. All things being equal, a book can set me free from my tomb of skin and egocentricity, if only for an instant. Ahhhhhh! Again, the bookstore. Where journeys begin, where exchange is made, where I go to church. How can one not enjoy the long lazing lull of living libraries?
The stacks set me righteous.
Electricity coursing through my personage. Setting me on fire. Proportion of knowledge, disorder of intention, as there are too many ways to unfold in one lifetime.
Shhhhhhh!
Do not talk.
What an order? A mantra?
Pick your poison. Pick your passion. A life of reading, in reverent fashion.
Welcome to my effort. Yes, as a great procrastinator, it requires great effort to stay focused on something productive that matters to me. I’ll find any old excuse to traipse from project to project, and I rarely end up at the place I started. I find this maddening, and exhaustive. So it is with high hopes, and a greater grasp of self-awareness, that I embark upon staying the course so to speak.
I enjoy writing. Be it blogs, fiction, poetry, etc. I love the craft and the act of creation, the art in and of itself, for it’s own sake and end. I am happy to be able to do it.
Some stats:
Born: March 1974
Education:
St.Francis de Sales, Charlestown MA
Don Bosco Technical High School, Boston MA
University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Lowell MA
Bunker Hill Community College, Charlestown MA
DePaul University, Chicago, IL
North Virginia Community College, Arlington VA
Harvard Extension School, Cambridge MA
Place of residence: Somewhere in the land of metro Boston. It’s vaguely familiar and becoming home more and more by the day, but when you come from “The Town” all else fails by comparison.
Favorite Color: I’m partial to all forms of blue.
Favorite Author: c’mon! don’t expect me to answer that, there are too many.
I enjoy memories of playing 80’s Atari better than playing any advanced gaming system that exists today.
Some day:
Hope to be recognized for my paper clip collection. As well as my 27 rejected applications to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailiey Clown college.
View all posts by Christopher Hickey
I love visiting old book shops❤ it’s like entering another dimension… I can spend an eternity just passing my fingers along the spines, opening and flipping pages and delighting in the scent of old books… I never wish to leave… it’s as if I’ve come home 🙂
I love visiting old book shops❤ it’s like entering another dimension… I can spend an eternity just passing my fingers along the spines, opening and flipping pages and delighting in the scent of old books… I never wish to leave… it’s as if I’ve come home 🙂
Kindred 😎