the wish for a library

You know what I've always thought of when I daydreamed about having my own house? Having my own library. I will have my own little room with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, and no one can enter without knocking. The room will have soft piped-in music. It is where I will do my writing.

All the places I lived in had a little corner designated to display my books. In my grandmother's house, my three-hundred-or-so pocketbooks gather dust. They are the product of my high school and college years, when I would patiently raid the book sales (because I could not afford brand-new paperbacks) and I would grab a frayed and yellowed copy of Firestarter because I was dying to read all the books Stephen King wrote. That first library also display how my taste in books 'matured,' from the Mills and Boons, to the Readers Digest Condensed Books, to Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steel, to John Grisham and Robert Ludlum. Surprisingly, I've had Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Gabriel Garcia Marquez even then.

When I went to college and had to live in a boarding-house, I kept piles of paperbacks under my bed because I didn't want my mother to find out that that's where my allowance goes. I sometimes went without lunch if I found a book I had particularly searched for.

When I got married and had to run a boarding house to keep ends meet, I kept a few of the books near the bed, handy for when I couldn't sleep. Some are in huge plastic boxes under the bed. The rest I would periodically send to my grandmother's house when there was no more space. Eventually my books sat side by side with my daughter's Little Golden Books and Winnie the Pooh stories.

We moved to a nicer, bigger house in Cavite three years ago, still renting, and I was in heaven. The master's bedroom had a corner-- no, a little room, that was perfect for my library. It even had an open shelf along the wall. That was when I started buying brand-new paperbacks. I read them once, then I displayed them. It felt good to have them because I could already afford to buy the new ones that would take years to get to the book sales.

Now we're moving again, this time to a house all our own. It is a tiny townhouse, and although I'm excited to have a house truly our own, my biggest disappointment is that I will not have a library. With two daughters to raise and barely enough space for the queen-size bed, somehow a library sounds superfluous. Again I thought of shipping my present collection to my grandmother's house.

But then, I'd be living in the townhouse until I grow old (unless I'll get myself a condo unit that I can fill with books!). Perhaps in a year or two, I'll convince my husband that we really need a third floor. I will outfit it with glassed-in shelves all around, and haul all my books from wherever they are scattered. I can hide there when I feel like screaming, or when the kids drive me crazy. Then I will lock the door, play me some The Corrs, and reeeeeaaaaaaddd.