Ephemeralness

So today I set off on a five hour drive from Syracuse to my Grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving. It was one of those times when the speedometer says you are going 65, but it feels like you’re driving a go cart around 15. However, I did discover that my ipod has a faster audiobook playback setting, meaning I knocked off a seven hour audio book in 3.5 hours. I give you this banal backstory to highlight my state of mind as I’m driving through Derby. Right across from the Yale Boathouse is this used book store I’ve never been in because every time I drive by it’s late at night or early in the morning. And more accurately, I’m on my way in a hurry to get somewhere.

Books by the Falls is in a an old Mill building, and I was totally unprepared for the site that greeted me. I’ve been in a lot of used book stores, most in varying degrees of organization. But this place is the perfect marriage of hodgepodge rooms and stacks of books. Although it’s vaguely organized by section, there are books everywhere.

I was trying to get a picture that would fully capture the feeling, and I couldn’t. This doesn’t do a half-bad job.

I turned around from another shelf of books, saw these shelves, and suddenly it hit me. This is how I always pictured the inside of my brain looks. (A visualization inspired by Stephen King.) I did a lot more browsing, sad I can’t go back there more often. It’s both overwhelming and liberating at the same time, looking through the books you have to accept that you won’t see every book, you can’t know all it’s secrets in a thirty minute encounter, and it makes the books you do find more fun. And it was the perfect counterpoint to a long day of driving through rainy drizzle.