Librarians

Sometimes living the good life makes it really hard to live the good life

Week 6:
141.5 lbs

As early as the second week of this project I had added some new goals to my list. One of them was to go through the letters of the alphabet reading classics. This would be living the “good’ life in every sense of the word. I have always loved reading classics so no great hardship for me this.

Yet, nothing irks me so much as people assuming that as a librarian I must read all the time, and that I became a librarian because I love to read. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do love to read. But I am not a great reader.

I read in fits and starts. If I like book, I will go through it rapidly, choosing to read it over a host of other options of things to do and definitely over slogging over unfinished chores. If I can’t find a book I like, which is a lot of the time, I will reread old books. I will never finish a book I don’t like. I can think of no bigger waste of time (unless there is some compelling reason like it was assigned for a class or assigned by my book club group. And in the latter case, many of us will give up after a valiant attempt if we don’t care for the month’s selection.)

But, at any rate, I did not become a librarian because I love books.

When I first came to the US, I definitely was under the assumption that my husband and I would be traveling around the world for a while and then would return to India to settle there. How wrong I was. Here, little children, is one of the 55 reasons I can give you why you should not marry your high school sweetheart after years of being apart and only communicating through letters. You really don’t know each other at all. Of course, thanks to the advent of the internet, social media, texting and Skype, I don’t suppose anyone will ever be in this situation again. Now we know people we have never met face to face so well, that we could be miles and countries apart, without being able to tell the difference. Unless Russia decides to chop through the underwater internet cables, and then I suppose all bets are off.

But, at any rate, I did not become a librarian because I love books.

I was in the US and, being Indian, the obvious assumption was that I would not pass up this opportunity to get a degree from some hallowed institution. In those days, having a degree in English literature (instead of an engineering degree) was already a big strike against me in Silicon Valley.

I sat down and seriously thought about my educational options for a few minutes and narrowed it down to two choices: Journalism and Library Science, both of which were degrees that were available to me at the local university.

Pros:
Journalism – I loved to write and had a degree in English
Library Science – I was terrified of being in a new country and perhaps being in a library meant I could be in a quiet corner somewhere cataloging books and not having to talk with anyone.

Cons:
Journalism – I might end up as a reporter having to run around all over the place, driving on the wrong side of the road, talking to people I didn’t know or understand.
Library Science – I didn’t know the first thing about libraries in the US. (It wasn’t until much later I realized just how wrong even my meager my impressions of libraries in the US were.)

I began to agonize about my choices. At this same time, just a few months after my move to the US, my husband and I were already getting on each other’s newlywed nerves. He was a brilliant engineer and usually a pretty nice guy. I was a supposedly smart woman, but terrified of everything around me. There was nothing I could do to make him proud of me. For me, winning the approval of people around me was all I had ever wanted.

After one very fun evening visiting with some of his friends we had come home and had just parked the car and walked in the house, when he turned to me and said, “When we go out, if you can’t talk properly, just don’t talk.” I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. I knew I had this singsong way of speaking that irritated him, but it wasn’t a choice I had made and no one had ever held me responsible for it before. Well, there had been one incident, but more about that later.

Growing up we sisters had never fought with each other and I could not recall hearing my parents argue. I had never learned how to deal with disagreement or adversarial situations or arguments, simply because I had never needed to. I had been a debater in college, but that was different. It was never personal.

So I looked at my husband in stupefaction. I should have picked up a book and chucked it at his head and asked him what the hell he expected of me. I should have asked him if he was drunk or high or both. I could have started a full-fledged fight when we could have aired our feelings and laughed it off. I suppose I could have done all kinds of things to save my marriage. But instead, I just shut down. I was done trying to please him.

The next morning, we were discussing my choices for college. He made some remark about how there was more prestige in becoming a journalist. Boom. And just like that, my choice was made. Librarianship it would be.

Childish? Yes, of course. It could have ended very badly for me. But as it turned out, despite my complete misconceptions of what libraries really are about in the US, there couldn’t have been a better career for me.

So back to reading. And back to a year of living the good life.

I would read a classic novel every 2 weeks (doable) – preferably one I have not read before. But I gave myself some leeway in this. I also tried to stay with shorter novels to make it easier to reach my goal. 26 books. One year. Perfect.

Here is the somewhat ambitious list I made for myself:

A – Adam Bede (George Eliot)
B- Bride of Lammermoor  (Walter Scott)
C- Cakes and Ale (W. Somerset Maugham)
D- Dubliners (James Joyce)
E- Ecce Homo (Nietzsche)
F- Far from the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy)
G- The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
H- Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
I- Indiana (George Sands)
J- Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
K – Kim (Rudyard Kipling)
L – The Land that Time Forgot (Edgar Rice Burroughs) – only 82 pages – Yay!!!
M – Main Street (Sinclair Lewis
N – A Nancy Drew book (Carolyn Keene) – since I have never read any of them
O – Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
P – A Perfect Spy (John Le Carre)
Q – The Quiet American (Graham Greene)
R – Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
S – The Sun also Rises (Hemingway)
T – A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
V – The Victim (Saul Bellow)
W – Walden (Henry David Thoreau)
X – Xala (Ousmane Sembene) (This was a hard letter of the alphabet)
Y – The Yearling (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)
Z – Zen in the Art of Archery (Eugen Herrigel)

Needless to say, 5 weeks later and I have already fallen behind on my reading project. I had placed a hold on Adam Bede and lost a week waiting for it. Oh what an excruciating book! My policy is to never finish a book I don’t like. But here was a book from my list. Did I have to finish the book?

I realized two things too late.
First – I don’t have to read the books in alphabetical order. So even if I force myself to finish a book from this list that I don’t like (and the jury is still out on this), I can put it off to the end. So much time lost. Sigh.
Second – I can download the book free from Project Gutenberg  and many other places. No need to wait for my library to send it to me. Hah! I am actually an excellent reference librarian. I would never have made this mistake while helping a library patron. I would have encouraged them to find options so they didn’t have to wait.
And third – Yes, this is in addition to the two things. I also realized that you can look for most classics on your Nook or Kindle. Just sort by price and you will find the free copies at the top of the list.

So here’s my final decision. I will read through my list as the mood takes me or when I can find the books instead of in strictly alphabetical order. I may also switch books in and out of the list if the mood so takes me. I’ sorry Adam Bede. You may have to go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes:
Project Gutenberg is  a great source for downloading free books without violating copyright laws. http://www.gutenberg.org.

Now in week 46, I am sorry to say that thanks to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, many of these Public Domain projects may be negatively impacted.

Also as an aside: Deciding on your choice of career when you are a new immigrant suffering from culture shock is like grocery shopping on an empty stomach. It’s a bad idea. Don’t do it.

Random acts of kindness – Maybe not so kind always

1 Week after Week 1 minus several months
Still 152 lbs

Random acts of kindness – May not always be so kind 

I was wandering around the house trying to decide what to do and where to go with my living the good life idea. I browsed the piles and stacks of things that I have meant to go through and have been unable to throw away over the years.

Having grown up in India, it is almost unnecessary to ever throw anything away. You are always surrounded by poor relations, servants (yes, we do use the word “servants”), and many people who are happy to reuse or recycle any item we have to spare. But the deep set need to stretch resources goes a little deeper in my family.

My father had a fine civil service job while we were growing up. We were well dressed and to all appearances were a successful almost upper middle class family. And so it seemed, even to us children. But in reality we were teetering on the edge of the upper middle class precipice.

My parents’ responsibilities were many. More people than just our immediate family were relying on my father’s salary for day to day survival. Plus, my parents had very high standards and they really did live the good life by stretching resources. We had a car when few of our friends and neighbors had cars. We had a British built car because my father was very picky about his cars. We travelled extensively. We bought books. We ate really well, and were cooking Chinese, italian, and all kinds of foods at home, when it was almost unheard of in small town India. We were very well dressed children, usually in the latest fashion. We attended expensive schools, because my parents valued education. My parents were generous to a fault when anyone with a hard luck story showed up at our door. But we made every penny count and we got rid of nothing that hadn’t served us in every incarnation possible.

My mother was stylish, creative, and very adept at using the sewing machine and at cooking. She sewed our school uniforms when it was strictly against the rules to use any but the school tailor, and she did such a good job that the nuns never could tell the difference*.  At the end of every school year we went through our class notebooks and tore out the unused pages which were then taken to the local paper recycler who sewed them together to make our “rough books”. The used pages were sold to the recyclers. Clothes were handed down always ending up with me, since I was the youngest and the shortest. After that, they were cut up and matched up with with some new bits of cloth or other old dresses. A bit of lace here, a frill or a  button there, and they emerged as fashionable new outfits. When they could not be reused as clothes, they became cushion covers. Old cushion covers became dolls’ clothes, mops and dusters.

It is easy to comprehend why I find myself suffering from borderline anxiety when it comes time to throwing things away. Fortunately, my problem hasn’t yet made me a candidate for possible public shaming on a TV show, but I do always try to find possible reuses for any item that has outlived its original purpose.

So wandering around the house that day wondering how to begin living a good life, I decided to go through the many unused clothes I have and donate them, or throw them away if they were not donatable. I was sorting the clothes into neat piles when I came across an brand new blue plaid Pendleton shirt that I had bought for my son one Christmas, but which he refused to wear**. A brilliant idea struck me. Next time I saw a homeless person standing at the street corner with a sign saying “Anything helps”, I would give them this shirt.

I got goosebumps at my lovely idea. I neatly folded the shirt and put it in a nice tote bag. After all, which homeless person doesn’t want a good tote bag too? Five days of driving around with this bag sitting shotgun and I still had not had one opportunity to hand this shirt to anyone. My enthusiasm was waning. Then opportunity struck!

I was in a gas station filling up gas in my car when I saw a middle aged man with a small rolled up sleeping bag, with a very elderly woman also carrying a small rolled up sleeping bag. They were clearly homeless, though judging from the way they were dressed and their posture and skin tones, I jumped to the conclusion they probably hadn’t been homeless very long. They both looked upset and tired, the woman particularly so. The man was yelling at her trying to get her to buck up. They looked at me and I got goosebumps all over again thinking I finally had my chance to do a really good deed and hand someone this lovely shirt.

I looked over at the couple and smiled. Sure enough, the man started walking towards me after loudly admonishing his mother to stay right where she was. “Can you spare some money?” he asked me. My heart sank. I really had very little money in my purse. I had planned to stop at the ATM after getting gas. But I had my beautiful Pendleton shirt which he would be so cozy and toasty in.

“I’m sorry I don’t,” I said, “But I have a nice warm shirt I can give you.” I was all bright and perky.

“No thank you. We have enough clothes.”

I felt all the dismay of rejection. He began to turn away, and stopped. “You wouldn’t happen to know a place where my mother and I could get something to eat, would you?”

Being a  librarian, I had a pretty good idea of where many of the local shelters were and began rattling them off. The man kept shaking his head. “I’ve been to all of them and they only give you bags of beans and rice. How are we supposed to cook that?” It sank into my consciousness that he had not been trying to buck up his mother, but was actually trying to talk his mother out of being hungry and needing food.  I could feel my face heating up. I was mortified. By my stupid insensitivity and for a system that hands homeless people uncooked beans and rice.

I rushed back into my car shouting, “Hold on.” I was going to rip those seats out with my bare hands if I had to, but I was going to find some money in my car. I shook out my purse, shook out my jacket pockets and looked in the glove compartment. $4.00! I handed it to him and pointed at the McDonald’s across the street. “Maybe you can get a couple of Big Macs for you and your mother?” He thanked me, went back and handed his mother his sleeping bag saying, “I’ll be right back,’ and walked right past McDonald’s into Subway. Well. I had got that wrong too. I hope he at least got a healthy half sandwich for them both that day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes:
*  I, however, spent the first week of each school year in terror expecting that I would be dragged out and publicly shamed, shaken and spanked during assembly. Those nuns could be downright mean and sadistic sometimes. But more about that another day.

** On a  side note: The Beach Boys originally called themselves The Pendletones, presumably in honor of the cool Pendleton shirts they wore.