In Silent Meditation

Wequetonsing, Michigan, 1969. The small library was located on the second floor of an old corner building. Downstairs, there was a candy shop. There they made such delectable items as chocolate covered cherries, turtles, and non-pariels – those chocolate drops coated with tiny white candies. The aroma that filled my nose, my brain, my soul as I climbed the back stairs to the library was nigh the first level of heaven. I wandered the shelves pondering my interests in such varied selections as The Happy Hollisters and Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie and Hans Holzer. As I did so, the scent of new, molten chocolate wound its way about the musty smell of old, well-loved books. To this day, over 30 years later, a whiff of an old book brings to mind chocolate – and vice versa. I am carried in multitudinous moments to this one day, when at age 11, I reveled in old books and chocolate. I am brought even to the moment of touching a book; selecting a title. This is truly comfort food - a little chocolate for the soul.

So begins a paper I wrote in 2000, entitled, Old Books and Chocolate, A Study of the Influence of Olfactory Perception on Memory. The paper was written for a psychology class in perception, but the connection between memory and scent has been fascinating to me since I recognized the pure power of a memory inspired by a fragrance. I was reminded again of both the paper and the experience today when I wandered into the “Books for Keeps” section of the local public library. This is the section set aside for the sale of books donated to the Friends of the Library. The moment I enter the library, I am pulled to this area as sure as if there were a huge magnet placed in the center. Obviously, today was no exception.

I hadn’t really intended to go to the library today. However, my son reminded me that I had received a call last week from the library. The recorded voice calmly told me that there was a book on hold. My son had requested a hold on two books. It seemed too soon for them to arrive on the shelf with our name tucked between the pages, for on the day he requested them, there were 44 and 19 requests in before his, respectively. However, not questioning the library’s message, I told my son a book was in. Then, I promptly forgot about it. Now comes a week later, when he wants to go get the book. Rushing home from work so we don’t lose time, I gather together as many of the previously borrowed books for return as possible. We drive over to the library, check the books in, and head directly to the hold shelves to pick up – nothing. We searched between books and on neighboring shelves; perhaps our book had gotten misplaced. Finally, I head over to the Information Desk, where a neon “Ask Here” sign beckons the lost and confused.

It only took the librarian a moment to discover that we had no book on hold. The message I received was in error – a misdial, perhaps. I thanked her and headed toward the door, suddenly but quietly pulled to the left and finding myself standing among the Friends of the Library donations. My son is ready to go; but not I. I stop before each shelf. Now that I am here, I am going to make the best of it. For the most part, the selection is sparse. Outdated computer books and back issue magazines are stacked near tattered travel books and King James Versions of the Bible. I turn a corner…take a deep breath, and…what’s that? I caught a whiff of something – a scent, a fragrance, an ancient deliciousness…

Discovering the source of my olfactory ardor, I stopped short, and looked up at the shelf before me. What joy! What beauty! Half a shelf of old books, ancient books, older than me. The yellowed edges smiled gently at me as I gingerly took a volume from the shelf. A 7^th grade English text book, an older version of one I recognize from the long-ago memory of my 7^th grade year at Cary Reynolds Elementary School in Chamblee, Georgia. Holding the book close, I inhaled deeply. Snapshots of 7^th grade flash through my mind. I recall reading the part of Becky in Tom Sawyer, diagramming sentences on the board and sliding my test papers to the side so that Billy Wood, the love of my life, and reader of the part of Tom, could see the answers over my shoulder. Singing along with Leavin’ on a Jet Plane, Billy’s favorite song, when the teacher let us play records in class, and dressing up as the sappy, washed out Melanie to present my first-person book report on Gone With the Wind. Maybe that was my problem, I wonder now, that I had none of the feistiness of Scarlett O’Hara or the early adolescent sexiness of Valerie, the girl Billy really liked. I let him cheat off my papers – he walked Valerie home. All this – these snapshots of my friends and I in mini, midi or maxi-dresses, sizzler sets and elephant bells – gathering in giggles over the latest issue of Tiger Beat – all this from one long, sensual inhalation of an old book.

As I tucked the text book under my arm, I reached for the next old book, a collection of children’s poetry. Hardbound with faded gold lettering, the book yearned to be touched, to have my loving fingers caress its cloth cover. The texture was rough beneath my fingertips; the spine hardly cracked. This book had lain lonely for untold years before finding itself inexplicably waiting for me. I realize that the tactile appeal of the old binding is almost as strong as the aged scent of fluttered pages; almost, but not quite. I think of the book, and I want to curl up with it, tenderly turning the neglected pages to discover what treasure might lie between the covers. What manner of children’s poems are these? Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, Vachel Lindsey? Renditions of folk tales like Babe, the Blue Ox and Johnny Appleseed? Whatever they may be, they hold a place of honor, like famous crown jewels upon satin pillows.

Both books came home with me today, to join others in my collection of old paper scented missives, standing stately upon a shelf awaiting my periodic momentary whim to take them down and read them, only after breathing in deeply as if my life depended upon that smell. Before they went on my shelf, however, I handed them to my daughter, who eagerly took them and cradled them before her and then leafed through them, taking deep breaths of the intoxicating, slightly musty fragrance of old books.

Now, where’s the chocolate?