There is only one hard part about leaving this job…my books, how can I leave my books? And I don’t mean just the books in the library proper, I mean the actual ones in my library, the one I end up building every contract and somehow never read my way through, the ones on my bookshelves in my cabin that I come home to nearly every night. It’s a long flight to Mumbai, and I don’t know that I can take them with me, at least not all of them; nor do I have time to read them all.
It sounds odd, but my library has gotten me through working in the library. Having constant access to that many books, that many worlds, has been my lifeline. Particularly during my days on the flagship (which I will, ironically, be returning to in a different context later this year.)
At the moment I have lost track of how many books are on my cabin shelves, not to mention the few I know I’ve left laying about in Amras’ cabin.
It will be harder to build my library when I don’t work in it.
The day after tomorrow I aquire a shadow – a brand new girl who bears the same name as me, who may or may not walk up the gangway as bright-eyed and busy-tailed as I once was. It’s hard to imagine me then, everything was so new, and so positive – I sometimes wonder when I became so jaded, when I developed the slight patina of oil on my skin that allowed so much of the day to day pressure to slide off me at the same time that it got to me so very deeply.
Which is why I rely so much on my books. Books are so often better than people, or at least at some points have proven more reliable. A book will never yell at me, never betray me, never blame me for something that I could not have predicted nor repair.
Leaving my books is like leaving a fortress; and I find myself somewhat nervous about poking my nose out into a whole new world, no matter how entrancing and exciting a concept it may be…