Snarly. I HAD walked the pavements of Midland for more than a month. Perhaps it really was true, and there were fumes that were poisoning my good nature. I let the clear and fresh Texas air blow me clean, north to my destination of Archer City. A fine day. Interstate 20 East is ordinary. Flat, with the usual familiar food joints and gas stations at every exit. It wasn’t until I switched to 277 North that my heart began to lighten from the landscapes that weren’t off putting to me. Again, those windmills in the far distance, spaced, marching on, inviting the wind. And closer to the road, the miles of cotton fields. I wound past towns whose populations were a few hundred, or less than a thousand. Livelihoods cotton, oil, ranching. Pulling over and gathering from the rough grass at the sides of the road a handful of cotton that had blown free and then been snagged, I marvelled at its sameness to cottonballs purchased at a store. Mine is not bleached and has a few sticks in it, but otherwise the same. I kept pushing on, had to reach BOOKED UP by closing. 273 miles to go and I made it.
Pulling into Archer, I recognized Thalia, the setting in Larry McMurtry’s books. The town has one light that doesn’t go red or green. Just the one cautionary light hanging from a wire at the main intersection, flashing yellow. BOOKED UP was right there, right where it was supposed to be. How to express how it felt. Knowing the history behind this undertaking. Knowing the “coming home” that it involved, too. And as someone who has only ever felt comfortable in two kinds of stores, book or food, I stepped right in and felt immediately at home.
BOOKED UP is divided into four storefronts, and named appropriately, BOOKED UP #1, #2, #3, and #4. BOOKED UP #2 was across the street, BOOKED UP #3 and #4 were down the street and around the corner. In the showcase room in BOOKED UP #1 there were books under glass, words and bits of whimsy on the walls, old wood, all things wood, tables, chairs, the bookcases, and the underlying all pervasive belief in books. The love of books. There were directions on the wall on how to use the bookstore: wander round, yell yahoo for assistance, bring your purchases back to #1 as there is nowhere to pay in the other buildings. As I stepped through doorway after doorway into more low-ceilinged warehouse rooms top to bottom lined with books, tears filled my eyes. I loved this. I loved this endeavour. I loved this beautiful success. I did not come here to buy only though. I came to breathe. I will not be distraught that I failed with my camera again. Asking permission to take a few shots for my friends back home, I forgot to switch on the flash and all the pictures are too dark.
Then I did what I think all book lovers do. I wandered. After years of working in bookstores, and book publicity, and being a book buyer, and having amassed my own particular personal collection of books over the years, I found myself weighing my knowledge and my favourites against another book lover’s. I searched out the authors that I hoped would be represented. Touchstones. I looked up titles that I knew were out of print and shouldn’t be, and there they were, having one more chance to be found. It didn’t matter that my time ran out and I hadn’t got to 3 and 4. I had seen enough, inhaled enough for my trip to have restored me. There were a few customers intent on their searches in #1 and no one at all in #2. There I picked up “A Coney Island of the Mind” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the poetry section for Patricia back home. I can already hear her saying, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” as I tell her this story. Uh huh. Crossing back over the street to pay for my book, the late afternoon sun so golden warm, the absence of pressure and traffic and noise, I felt tapped into all those moments past and future when you realize you’re feeling a true acceptance of your life, and a gratitude. Anne Lamott says there are only two types of prayers, “Please, please, please,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I’ve come to agree.
So then I walked the streets, it didn’t take long. Nothing was open. Many of the buildings were empty and hadn’t seen life for a while. Archer is on a bit of a rise and the wind made me glad. You could see cars approaching, Wichita Falls is just 20 miles down the road. And it wasn’t hard to imagine the feeling a young person could get with night coming on, a restlessness if Archer wasn’t enough for them. And there’d be those who’d spend the rest of their lives driving back and forth to Wichita, thinking they got out. And the other choice would be to dig deep, and find something else inside yourself. I drove too, went back into the neighbourhoods to get a glimpse of families, yards and trees beside porches, trailers and brick houses, shacks fallen into ruin. I knew there were two places to stay in Archer City and I had seen one of them, The Spur Hotel. But it had a type-written note on its door saying that they required 24 hours notice for Reservations, and the door was locked. The sun was going down so I did the obvious, hit the road to Wichita Falls, unsure of what to do next, or where to stay the night.
But I didn’t find it, a town centre, a sign, an arrow pointing the way. In the La Quinta lobby I had picked up hotel coupon books, so I pulled over and started thumbing through them. Loneliness is a good indicator that you’ve taken a wrong turn. I sat by the side of the road. All I could see was yet another Wal-Mart, another Sonic, another IHOP, a coupon for a Travelodge in Abilene in my hand, halfway back to Midland. But I didn’t want to go. I had been happy going nowhere in Archer City, had felt a swell of peace. Sometimes the little voice doesn’t seem to make any sense, but it knows what it knows. I started the car up and turned back from where I came, back to Archer City…
Good Life
diane
You are an inspiration Diane. I also have a love affair with books.
cyl