Mighty Books

In the first month, my New Year's Day happiness went wrong. I donated my old printed books to a friend, thinking sixteen years of storage would not go badly. And Hell, yes! It did. More than half went to the fire due to its moldy state. Paper is alive like a mummy and cannot be moist. The last picture I had of all of them was on a luminous loft above the club Razzmatazz where I lived in 2008.When I became a Digital Nomad, I left my mighty books behind because I read them all during my teen years and twenties, when I thought I had to listen to all the voices before having the audacity to listen to mine someday. For me, they were my loyal friends on lonely nights. Most of the time, I remembered passages I had read as a memory alive in me.I was a very fortunate kid who hopped from one library to another. The first was almost magic because it was a centuries-old monk's library. I spent over there half of my childhood. Try to imagine the wonders that come to mind just with the dense perfume of those mighty books. But the altar boy changed his voice very early and had a farewell to never look back again.Then came the age of innocence, when one thinks to shine like Socrates, saying the unexamined life is not worth living. And what better way than writing? Yes, I thought, I would have had my father as a supporter. However, he never bought me the books I wanted. And he despised my activities as a pastime, a hobby, nothing that might end as a solid income as a provider for my future family. He had a keen understanding of my problem. Indeed, how come a ridiculed stutterer wanted to be a harmonic and smooth bass, a dyslexic person wanted to be a distinguished author, and a slow reader in the fast and dynamic writer of all sorts? I guess all I wanted was his endless admiration for my endeavors. And that was my calling. An artist is a crazy dude willing to take his lumps before believing that he has something to sell. No shortcuts for me.I landed in a public library and finally borrowed books, though with the limited credit of one at the time. No wonder then that the first thing I did when I earned a salary was buy premium white paper, ink for the fountain pen, and the many books I remember reading or wanting to read.My third library was in the Airborne Squadron, where I had to zigzag between translations of Dien Bien Phu in exchange for having funds to assault the bookshops of the nearby city and a quiet place to read whenever my commando training let me rest. And suddenly, the Air Force gave me a diabolic word processor where I wrote without using the correction fluid.So, when I finished my tours, I rented a bungalow where the bookshelves were everywhere upstairs with a brown corduroy sofa and a desktop with a personal computer and a noisy printer fed by continuous form paper. Never before was I so happy and also so lonesome.I began talking to the dog, and I thought that could be cabin fever. I needed female company, getting laid, or romanticizing about a girl. The problem was the span of attention included and all the drama attached. Like a Leonard Cohen's song. I need you, I don't need you, and all of that jiving around.In twenty years, until that October of 2008, I wrote novels I couldn't even imagine. At that point, with a laptop in my backpack and the Anna Archive website sharing 25 million books, and a connection to the net, I left my mighty books for storage, because I became a Digital Nomad.And all that won’t mean that I achieved being a fast and dynamic writer of all sorts, but having long stances on solitary confinement in literary landscapes. My top ten list begins with a sailboat and ends with the House of the Winds. At the marinas I used to moor, the older ones with a British members-only distinction had a seasick hall within a library and plenty of bookshelves and well-thumbed books, mostly paperback, that lovers of the bookcrossing left behind.Now, I love being firmly detached, grounded, and cornered to my home studio and expensive vocal chain after decades of wandering in the wilderness. I have been there, done that. Living on the edge is really awesome, like living on the road, but I already made my humble part.I wish I could go back to my bungalow and feel again that illusion. This is when I miss my loyal friends. From the very moment I bought them to the second-best read, when I swore to have written that line before. But it was just the burning desire to write my own. Who did not read Fahrenheit 451? That near future with printed books censored –we say now canceled– when the readers became book-lovers of the disappeared or abridged books thanks to unlocking photographic memory. I wish I had that gift!I cannot memorize not even my own writings. Sometimes, I had heard music coming from that storage, and now, knowing the fate of half of them burning bright because of mold, what a poisoned chalice for my friend, I think I'm ready for due penance at least to unlock the power of such mighty books. Get full access to Don't You Dare To Think Out Loud! at javiertruben.substack.com/subscribe