When You Live Abroad, You Lose Easy Access to Books

If you have the means, I greatly appreciate your support! Upgrade at 30% offOne downside to living abroad is that you lose easy access to books written in your native language. All my adventures took place before smartphones and the ability to instantly download any book you wanted. But digital copies are a poor substitute for a living, breathing book.It’s comparable to the difference between looking at a photo of a puppy and holding one in your arms.Being able to walk into a bookstore is as important to me as taking a walk into the woods. When people say, “Go out and touch some grass,” I reach for my copy of Walt Whitman. People who are addicted to words know what I mean.My life in Lima, Peru provided me with many of the foundational experiences of my life. It also taught me how to become a scrounger of books. Picture a man in glasses picking through a library dumpster and you get the general idea.A starving man must do what he can in order to feed his soul.My emergency ration of booksNaturally there were bookstores in Lima, Peru and they offered books in English. But the selection was minimal and the price was high.I’ve never taken a trip anywhere in my life without packing at least one book. I’d gone to to Peru with the intention of staying, so I’d brought my emergency rations. These were books I knew would sustain me even if I had to read them over and over again.My first selection was my battered old copy of The Lord of the Rings. It is a boxed set that was given to me by my uncle when I was maybe eight or nine. He passed away shortly after that, so it’s the only physical thing I have to remember him by. Remembering the person who gave you your first copy of The Lord of the Rings is like remembering the first friend you made at school.That’s an important life event.I also had a copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Between those two books, what else do you need really? I’d probably select something by Roald Dahl or Douglas Adams.The whispers of old friendsOnce or twice a year, I’d return to the United States to visit friends and family. I’d almost always come back to Peru with a backpack filled with books. I need books around me even if I go days without reading one. It makes me jittery to be completely cut off from books. Sometimes I’m compelled to walk through a library or a bookstore and just breathe in the air that tastes like it’s been trapped for decades between closed pages.If you shut your eyes when you’re surrounded by books, you can hear the whispers of all your old friends. It’s a background muttering like you hear at a bar, except the people talking are Hemingway, Poe, and the younger version of you.The voices contained within books can’t exist without you.Your nostalgia about the stories you’ve read always contains a memory of the person you were when you read them. Books represent the fond reflection of a relationship you had with a writer.Learning Spanish through familiar booksI went to Peru to learn Spanish. Wishing to be surrounded by books, I bought translated copies of some of my favorite stories.The first was James and the Giant Peach. I knew the story by heart, so reading the Spanish version was an opportunity to pick up vocabulary. I got great use out of the Spanish phrase for “repugnant little beast.” Everyone always laughed when I said that.For me, learning through reading was a highly effective way to capture new words.As a curious side effect, struggling through books in Spanish churned up memories from my early days of learning how to read.Vibrant moments from the pastI was drawn to books the same way children are drawn to eavesdrop on adult conversations. Even if you don’t know what the adults are talking about, it’s fascinating. You pick up words and fragments of ideas. You hear the cues that result in laughter. Listening is the key to entering into the adult world.What mysteries and marvels must exist there?There’s an inherent longing to be an explorer. That longing drove me both into the wilderness and into the library. You want to uncover mysteries and secrets that will empower you on your upcoming adventures. You want to unlock all the doors and find a way around every obstacle you encounter. Listening and reading both count as experience. Experience prepares you for the tests.Struggling through my favorite stories in Spanish revealed another aspect of the mystical power of words. I remembered not just the story, but the child I was when I first encountered the story. I experienced afterimages of putting down the book and seeing my adolescent hands. I remembered the television shows I watched after reading, or the close friends I called, or the adventures I had.I hadn’t thought about many of those things in decades.The compulsion of storiesWe turn and face complex stories the same way a plant turns to face the sun.Reading in Spanish helped me recall a state of mind of not really knowing how to read and not really knowing how to understand. It provided some needed perspective on how far I’d come.Little by little, I became fluent in Spanish, though I never quite got to that level where you can completely disappear into the current of the language. The more you bathe in words, the less you see the little marks of ink upon the page. Instead, you see forests. You can actually reach out and touch the bark. You can push aside cobwebs. You can feel the cold wind on your cheek.In many ways, books are more real than the world itself.Armed with languageFor the first few months I lived in Peru, I spent a lot of time in my room. I was introverted and I needed to go through a metamorphosis. I needed to grow my language wings, and before they developed I felt vulnerable and afraid.But as I grew into my comfort, I ventured out and made larger and larger circuits. Eventually, I discovered a community of American immigrants. They were like me but at different stages of life. Many of them had the same compulsion for words.There were regular book exchanges, and knowing that my stockpile of books could be replenished helped take the anxiety away. We exchanged stories and forged new friendships. These would become future memories that churn up if I ever revisit the books of that time again.Of course, I wasn’t going to give up my copies of The Lord of the Rings or The Brothers Karamazov. But I did turn over my copy of Life of Pi by Yann Martel, which I’d picked up at an airport bookstore. I turned over my copy of The Da Vinci Code which isn’t really a very expensive chip when it comes to trading books.I wouldn’t turn over my copy of The Lord of the Rings for the contents of the Library of Congress.People you meet on a long journeyThe books you encounter later in life never quite have that sort of deep-seated friendship from the classics you read when you were young.Even now, at my wife’s parents’ house, there’s a box in a closet that contains the starting seeds of a nice personal library. Perhaps one day I’ll return to complete that collection. Then, further down the road, when my time has passed, those books will make their way to another English speaking immigrant with a hunger for books.Another person, just like me, who first discovered a love of books that led to a love of travel, who ended up in Peru desperate to hear the whisper of old friends. That person will stumble upon my collection, and flipping through the pages I caressed, they’ll see words scribbled into the margins.I wonder if that person will pause and reflect on who I might have been? I wonder if they’ll recognize that we are not so different? I wonder if they’ll hear the whisper of my voice and feel comforted in knowing we are the same?You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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