My Addiction

My addiction began on March 22, 1958. I was seven years old. It was less than five months prior to my daddy’s death.

This Sunday had begun like any other until I heard my mother’s sobs interrupting our peaceful morning in Great Neck, Long Island. My parents were in the den. The windows, lit with the morning sun illuminated my mother’s hair to a deep, golden auburn. She was awash in tears and sorrow, bent over the newspaper. My father put his arms around my mother and gathered her into his arms.

I ran down the den steps to my parents, hugged my mothers knees. “Mommy, mommy, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

She pushed me aside, “Not now, Janie.” I ran up the steps from the room and hid under the dining room table, watching the drama unfold. I searched for clues to whatever could make my mother grieve so deeply. The Sunday New York Times was spread across the library table, as it was every Sunday morning. My mother’s voice was muffled in my father’s chest, as he gently stroked her back.

“It can’t be true. They were so much in love. How is it possible he could die so suddenly?” Mommy mournfully asked Daddy.

 “No predicting a plane crash, sweetheart,” was Daddy’s reply. Still hidden beneath the dining room table I watched as my parents made their way to the living room, arms around one another. I snuck into the den to examine what had brought such pain to my mother. The front page of the New York Times was open, huge letters in black crashing across the page. Like a thunderbolt, the letters on the page came together to form words: “Mike Todd DEAD.” Just like that, the letters registered in my brain. My life-long addiction began: I could read!

Over the course of the day I learned of the tragedy. Mike Todd had been killed in his private plane, “The Liz”, which had crashed. I knew my mother adored Elizabeth Taylor and felt her marriage to Mike Todd was a storybook romance made in heaven. My mother emulated Elizabeth Taylor with the same deep, red lipstick and the same adoration for my father as the famous movie star held for her film-producer husband.

 With cruelty I never would have imagined my husband could possess, he began pulling all my books off the shelves and threw them on our bed. “Start cataloging. Those you’ll give away or sell, those you can’t bear to part with, then place them into subject matter.”

“I hate you,” I muttered under my breath. After an hour he returned. I had amassed one pile of five books, and the rest of the bed was heaped in piles according to subject matter.

“See, you’re doing great! Look at all these books you can get rid of!” He began placing the enormous pile of books into empty liquor boxes.

“STOP! What are you doing? Those are the books I’m keeping!” I pointed to the five

books on the corner of the bed. “Those are the ones I can part with.”

Tim threw yet another pile of books onto the bed.

“It’s cocktail time. Well after five.” I stomped off to the living room and held my ground as I waited for him to make me a Jim Beam over ice. “Tomorrows another day,” I said brightly as I swirled the ice in my cocktail, thinking of a scene from Bonfire of The Vanities. Where was that book?

Over the course of the next week we valiantly worked through our shared addiction. We slowly progressed, following my motto: “Will I live long enough to read this book I’ve had for forty years?” Those words became the measure of my success.

I’m happy to say I am cured. I’ve completed my twelve-step program, which translated means: “Keep twelve books, give away twelve.” I smugly whispered the other part of my twelve step program, “hide twelve books under the bed, the couch or in my office closet.” Whatever works for recovering addicts, was bound to work for me.

On the eighth day of cleaning I am happy to report I have not purchased any new books. I avert my eyes from the full boxes of books on the living room couch, awaiting departure to our favorite book buyer. If I manage to spy a title of a book which I am tempted to remove from the boxes I race into our clean bedroom, where I no longer sneeze.

Today I spent an hour in my office, admiring the view of my (relatively) clean

desk, the surface which I have not seen for three years. I proudly peruse the titles on my dust-free bookshelves. I snicker over the books I’ve hidden under the couch. I meditate on my couch, envisioning fresh books dancing in my head, titles I can now purchase with so much cleared out space.

In the bedroom I pridefully notice the books on my bedside bookcase I am currently reading: The Killer Across the Table, Inventing The It Girl, Women's Voices from the Oregon Trail and A Walk in the Woods. More books are piled on top of my enormous leather-bound, handmade paper journal, whose pages will take me years to fill, hidden in my bedside bookcase.

 So, my dear fellow addicted bibliophiles, there is hope for you, too. Just remember my admonishment: “For every book you give away you’re making room on your shelf for one more.”

Today, clean shelves. Tomorrow, the library sale room; next week, Amazon or ABE. The world is my bookcase.

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