When I was young, one of my all-time favorite things was to go to the library. When we couldn't make it ALL THE WAY to the library, we went to the book mobile, a portable library on wheels that would come to our side of town on the regular.

I loved the smell of libraries. I loved the quiet. I loved the rows and rows and rows of books, each one a promise of a journey to a new world, an introduction to a new person, a portal into a life outside my own experience.

My biggest "problem" was that I could never merely check out one book. I could not do it. I would start my search and move into a kind of trance state in which it seemed certain book titles called my name and begged me to add them to my ever-growing pile to take home. Eight, ten, fifteen books at a time, plunked into my library bag or stacked in my skinny arms, would make their way to my living room. And the first thing I did once I got them home was to sit down on the floor and surround myself with them.

There was probably no happier place for me as a little girl than in my living room, sitting on the floor, quite literally surrounded by books.

I could never figure out where to start, so I started all of the books at the same time. I would read one for a bit, need a break, then pick up whichever was next in the pile and keep going. I loved this way of reading, flitting back and forth from topic to topic, character to character, story to story.

I felt not one bit of shame for this way of reading, except when my second grade teacher told my parents, "Alice reads too much, and too fast." Thankfully, my parents didn't agree with my teacher's conclusion.

And then I grew up ...

And I felt that I should read in a more adult manner.

That I should keep a tidy-er coffee table.

That I should read one book at a time like a thoughtful, respectable, sane person.

And I tried. And tried. And tried.

Every once in a while, astounded by the growing piles near my side of the couch, I would clean everything out, shelve 90% of the books I had started and dutifully sit down with just one or two books (!!) on the orderly table next to me.

This lasted about 36 hours.

I read one book and it remindes me of another. Perhaps a poem I read recently (so I go find that book), or a short story (I grab that anthology), or a novel I've read numerous times (I collect the dogeared copy). Soon, the coffee table and its surrounds are covered again in books and I am off to the races.

I just shared with some friends that I am done trying to tame my childish tendencies to read with wild abandon. I am finally accepting that this is who I am and who I will always be. I live to be surrounded by books. I love to be surrounded by books. I strive to be surrounded by books. I choose to be surrounded by books. Clean and tidy coffee tables are over-rated!

This makes me more happy than you might ever know.

If someday I go missing, come look for me in our living room. I'll be there, grinning like a little girl, encircled, overtaken, and surrounded by more books than any one person should ever have the privilege to read.

I'd be delighted if you'd sit down next to me, grab a book off the top and read (quietly) by my side.