Something Lost, Something Found

I was reorganizing my books over the winter holiday when I suddenly remembered, for reasons unknown, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. I don’t know where this book went or why I thought of it at that moment, but I was instantly bereft, wishing to see its spine wedged among other favorites.

It would be easy enough to order another copy from Amazon and have it in hand tomorrow. I might. But tonight I’m preoccupied with the mystery of how and where I lost the book that meant so much to me as a twenty-year old English major lonely for her studies over winter break of sophomore year.

Did I give it away during a purge before moving? Did I lend it to someone who fell under its spell and contrived to keep it? Did it fall behind a couch and does it sit there still?

I realize that this is a mystery that can’t be solved and isn’t a tragedy. But here’s the thing: the romance, geography and strength of character that are braided in that book – in that copy of that book – impacted in some small but certain way the person I became.

In Keith Oattey and Maja Djikic’s Dec. 21 NYT editorial, “How Reading Transforms Us,” they explain that “beyond influencing how we think or/and feel, reading helps us to be ourselves.”

In that sense, books are a lot like the people who raise and shape us, and it makes sense to want to keep them within reach.