Books By Color – RED

RED.

I’m feeling dangerous, daring. I feel like diving into a red book today. My bookcase arcs across the wall like an uneven rainbow – my refuge in the middle of the storm or as in this case, boredom. I feel heady with anticipation, my fingers stroking the glossy covers. With each book title I try to imagine where I was, what event prompted it’s acquisition and I get excited…these are way better than sexy red pumps.

I arrange my books by color not genre, they are like old friends…I want to be reminded and surprised of the highs, the twists and plots as I run into each one.

Choices…I have the British Medical Association’s review on Children’s Symptoms, old faithful Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, 1001 Recipes by Martha Day, so far I have only used one recipe – plain old Banana Bread ( yeah..I am full of good intentions), Courting Disaster by Pat Robertson – this must be a stray – did I read 270 pages of how the Supreme Court was usurping the people’s power?

Ah! Gooseberry Patch’s Celebrate Winter – It is noted on the recipe for Smiling Bishops, in proper Victorian cursive script that the combination of port, red wine, eight whole garlic cloves and an orange put Ebenezer Scrooge in a holiday spirit. Well, that’s news to me. I just cracked open that book for the first time! Now I can thank the Christmas catalogues from my son’s school fundraising for that piece of Christmas trivia.

Then I pause to flip through The Laws of Money, The Lessons of Life by Suze Orman and she’s smiling at me – I’m approved. For whatever I want now, I am approved! But none of these are hitting the B-spot! I want to read something fire-engine-red bold! I’m not giving up, tucked between Limitless Love by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and Healing the Heart by Joan Hunter, I find it!

I think your book collection attempts to define you, but don’t pass any judgement on me yet. Wait till I get to my section of blue books!  Does anybody out there have this much fun with their home library? Please tell me I’m not weird.

Anyway, I carefully pull it out by its golden braided thread. It’s a numbered limited edition chapbook of Decay Constant by Margaret Ross. My copy is #46. I dive under the checkered cotton throw on my armchair, settle in and it reads me.

“ …from space when night appears
a hammock swinging gently out across our
Earth, each fall slushed over

bird calls could be recognized for tiny screws
creaking shut your mind
when used my fingernail to scrape
white tallies on my naked ankle then

think of the long trip home.
You’re already home. All the loyal
idiot details know what to do to stay believable but you…”

An excerpt from – A Timeshare by Margaret Ross.