Twenty years ago the ringing sound of heels on a metal staircase marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life, only I didn’t know it at the time.

The most pivotal moments in our lives quite often announce themselves with great fanfare. Weddings, the birth of a child, the passing of a loved one are key events after which our lives, for better or worse, are changed forever. However, sometimes these moments sneak up on us with a whisper instead of a shout. When they occur they may feel like just another moment in a day filled with moments, it’s after the fact when we realize their significance. I guess you could call it delayed gratification. I had one such moment on April 21, 2001. It was a beautiful spring evening and that was the day I met Carol, the love of my life and the mother of our two children. 

Two decades have gone by and I still have vivid memories of that day when Carol came into my life. She and I were introduced by a mutual friend named Dannielle. Dan and I had a warm and easy friendship. We laughed a lot and enjoyed spending time together. A couple of months prior to meeting Carol, Dan began talking up this “dancer, teacher, world traveler, Deadhead (Grateful Dead fan)” friend of hers.  So I’m hearing all of this and all the while checking off boxes. I was definitely intrigued and told Dan that I wanted to meet this mystery woman. I was single at the time, in a good space in my life, and ready  for something new.

After some back and forth, Dannielle managed to arrange a day for Carol and I to meet. I was living in Santa Cruz at the time. Dan and Carol both lived about three hours north in Sonoma County. I made the trip north on that fateful Saturday to Dan’s apartment where my meeting with Carol was to take place. I was helping Dan do some painting in her place that afternoon. Butterflies of excitement fluttered through my stomach as we sloshed various colors of paint onto the walls. I was trying not to have expectations and just let events unfold as they may. 

Dan’s studio was behind and above a family’s home and was accessed via a winding metal staircase similar to the type used to ascend to the top of a lighthouse. The appointed time of our rendezvous had arrived when I heard the clomp and ring of heeled shoes on metal. The door swung open and in flowed Carol. This is the memory that is so crystalized in my mind, the way Carol literally flowed into my life. 

Her river of hair, red as a robin’s breast, spilled out of a colorful head scarf, cascading down past the middle of her back. The swish swish of these long tresses was perfectly synched to her graceful movements as Carol sashayed into the room. Her thin and lithe body was draped in a light brown, long sleeve peasant style blouse. A vividly printed skirt flowed past her ankles. Carol’s electric blue eyes were turned up to their full brightness that evening. Her big toothy smile was warm and welcoming, the freckles on her face a nice punctuation mark.

Our actual date was fairly uneventful. The three of us went to a bar, had a couple of beers and listened to a bluegrass band. Carol and I got together again the next day for a hike in the redwoods. The seeds of our relationship had been sown. How could I have possibly known at the time how that day would alter the course of my life? It was a moment in a day filled with moments that was the beginning of a beautiful life shared.

At the spring equinox last year the world was in turmoil. A mysterious and deadly virus that began “over there” had made it to our shores. Schools, movie theaters, restaurants, health clubs, basically all “non-essential” businesses were immediately closed. Baseball, the quintessential harbinger of springtime renewal was put on hold indefinitely. The NBA abruptly paused its season. Panic buying wiped out supermarket shelves. What do you mean I can’t hug my friends? No live music? No summer festivals? Locked down in our homes, Zoom was a sorry substitute for real human interaction. A malevolent regime ruled in Washington, confident of another four years to wreck havoc on us all. To say things were looking bleak was a vast understatement. How on Earth would we survive? Well, survive we did.

On this glorious spring day one year later, the darkness of the past year seems like a fever dream. God’s paintbrush has splashed the neighborhoods and hillsides with every type of spring flower imaginable; their yellows, oranges, purples, whites and blues pulsate against a backdrop of green grass and blue skies. A crazed president has been replaced by a kind and humane president. Many thousands of people are being vaccinated every day. Daily covid cases and hospitalizations are on a steady decline. Businesses are opening up, masks are slowly being lowered and a collective sigh of relief can be heard everywhere. Fear and dread are  giving way to hope and positivity. On April 1st, the Major League Baseball season will begin on schedule. Actual fans, not cardboard cut-outs, will be in the stands.

I contemplate all of this with intense gratitude as I sit today at one of my favorite places in nature. I’ve come here numerous times over the past year seeking solace and a respite from a world gone mad. All around me are signs of renewal and rebirth.

When I arrive, a squirrel scolds me from the trees above. I don’t think he was expecting a visitor. Chattering jays carry on a noisy conversation. The subtle “chip, chip” of some mysterious forest bird fills in the blanks. A silent breeze ever so slightly moves the new green shoots of the surrounding willows. The breeze needs the trees to announce its presence and create the dance of spring.

The river current is languid and lazy, broken only by small ripples, swirls and dimples. The river is a canvas for the towering trees on the opposite bank, their naked skeletal branches are reflected in its surface. Diving ducks explore the edges of the canvas, vanishing suddenly as if pulled down from below only to reappear again a few yards away. Feathers and twigs are in no hurry on their way to the sea, they always arrive right on schedule.

The breeze picks up, giving voice to the trees around me which creak like the bones of an old woman. I can feel the ancient spirit of the Pomo whispering in the wind. With a flash of black a cormorant jets past, its long, black neck pointing like an arrow downstream.

Two crows are conversing now, it’s an age old discussion filled with mystery and wonder. A tiny butterfly, bone white and brilliant against a landscape of browns and greens, lets the wind take it where it may. 

Hope.

Taylor Mountain is a 1,000 acre gem in the crown of the numerous open space preserves that dot Sonoma County. I was enjoying a day free from obligations today and hiked to the mountain’s 1,380 foot summit. Once at the top I was higher than the hawks and turkey vultures that circled below me, the nearly 360 degree vista was breathtaking. It’s easy to feel inspired at a place like this and I think that’s what prompted this snippet of conversation that I happened upon on my way down.

A woman was hiking with her three small children the oldest, a girl around five years old, turned to her mom at the moment I was walking past and asked, “Mama, what do you think heaven looks like?” The hillside we were standing on is dotted with majestic oak trees and the grasses Ireland green from recent rains, the clouds wispy brushstrokes across a robin’s egg blue sky. We could see across the valley below many miles to the north and south and to the western foothills and beyond. To the little girl perhaps this was what  heaven looked like, she just needed confirmation from mom.

As a long time elementary school teacher and father of twins, being asked questions like the one posed by the little girl were once a routine part of my day. Kids unfiltered view of the world is so refreshing to be around, they see it as it is and just let it fly. Their wonder and inquisitiveness is a breath of fresh air in our “been there, done that” world.

When you think about it, what a strange concept heaven is. You die and your spirit (essence, prana, mojo…whatever) goes “up.”  I know it’s up because when virtually every major league ballplayer is rounding third base after hitting a home run, they point both of their index fingers skyward and gaze gratefully towards the heavens. The moon, stars and galaxies are known collectively as “the heavens.” They are, after all, “up there.” Humans through time immemorial have looked to the stars for inspiration and knowledge. No wonder we think of heaven as up.

So anyway when you finally make it “up there”, you’re met by white clad angels who float by atop whipped cream clouds to greet you. There may be harps involved. Someone by the name of Peter may review your life in his “naughty or nice” book. Everyone and everything is exactly as it should be. There are no words to describe the beauty. You stay here for all of eternity. My concept of heaven is a bit different.

You don’t need to wait for the end of your life to get to heaven, there are little pieces of heaven everywhere. My son’s eyes are bluer than the mountain sky, my daughter’s eyes a shade of hazel previously unknown to humankind. If that ain’t heaven, I don’t know what is. A day spent with the ones you love in a place that you love? Heavenly. The waves and the wind, the sand and the shorebirds. Some call it the beach but I call it heaven. 

Heaven is up, it’s down, it’s all around, it’s within you, without you. Heaven is right in front of us, we simply need to open our eyes to see it.

Do some things really get better with age or does our familiarity with them over time deepen our love and appreciation, thus making those things more special to us? I think one of the keys to answering this question is to make a conscious effort to always be looking for the new and unexpected in the familiar. It’s all too easy to take someone or something for granted, forgetting about the uniqueness and beauty that has always been there. The people and places that we most cherish are always in motion, constantly changing. After all, the only real constant in life is change. Whether it’s a loved one or a favorite place in the world, being present and aware of the unique beauty that’s before us is one of the keys to really showing up for life.

The idea for this essay came to me while out for a walk one recent evening. Sometimes I just listen to the quiet sounds of life in my neighborhood, and other times my walk has a soundtrack. On this particular night I decided to plug in my earbuds and put my iPod on “shuffle”.  After a few minutes of strolling, George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord came up. If a list could somehow be compiled of the most listened to songs of my life, this song would certainly be near the top. I was 14 years old in 1971 when I bought the 45rpm vinyl record of My Sweet Lord at the local record shop in my hometown. This song has been part of my life for half a century so I think I’ve given it some very deep listens. However, during my walk the other night I heard a nuance in the background vocals that I had never heard before. It was amazing, after countless listens I actually heard something new. Suddenly I was hearing this song with new ears. I liken this phenomenon to noticing something new in the smile of a loved one or perhaps a previously unseen characteristic in that person. I thought I “knew” My Sweet Lord but all I know now is that there are still doors that remain to be opened by me in that song.

Every time I listen to My Sweet Lord, my reaction is quite profound. I’m often nearly overcome with emotion while the song is playing. This music taps into a deep well of spirituality that I never knew existed within me. The Beatles were all very spiritual men, how else could they have created music that has resonated so deeply with so many millions of people? However, because of his deep connection to Indian music, it is  George Harrison who is known as the spiritual one of the group. I have no idea who or what God is but I think it has something to do with eternal love, joy and beauty. If that’s the case, then surely My Sweet Lord is the musical embodiment of God.

Using words to write about music is about as futile as trying to describe colors to a blind person. Trying to describe my feeling while listening to My Sweet Lord are equally futile, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

The song begins with a shimmering wash of acoustic guitars, layered like the brushstrokes of a master on a canvas. At :16 the sweet, melodic, double tracked slide guitar sound that is George’s trademark makes its entry with the first of his two guitar solos. At :48 the first hint of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound appears via some beautifully understated flutes. The backing vocals, in the guise of a chorus of angels, debuts at 1:26 with the joyous refrain of “hallelujah, hallelujah”. The song changes key as the Wall of Sound kicks into full throttle at 1:45 when drums, percussion, bass, more acoustic guitars and the kitchen sink are added to the mix. At this point George is so deeply into his lead vocal that at 2:23 when he sings, “I really want to show you lord but it won’t take long my lord”, his voice cracks with emotion. My eyes well up with tears here every time. The second guitar solo, between 2:39—2:53, is pure manna from Heaven. At the 3:00 mark, more angels join the choir as the mantra “hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, hare hare” is repeatedly sung. By now, My Sweet Lord is no longer just a pop song (was it ever?), but rather a prayer, and I’m filled with the hope and possibilities of love and beauty that this song invokes. During the final 1:47, instruments and voices are all working in perfect harmony, the joy of the musicians shining through like sunbeams shooting out from behind a cloud. The final fade out is a walk on the beach at sunset, the pinks and yellows, reds and oranges gradually giving way to the deepest shades of blue, then silence.

With the writing and recording of My Sweet Lord, I believe George Harrison and producer Phil Spector created music that is truly divine. Like this song, the people and places that I hold most dear will continue to improve with age because I will continue to find new and different ways to love and appreciate them. Hallelujah indeed.

As the sun finally rose, he was starting to understand the meaning of life. Well not really, but last night while he and his two best friends were deep into conversation, it seemed like they had it all figured out. Their talk was wide ranging and free form, bouncing from one subject to the next with a Kerouac like urgency. As the level in the tequila bottle got lower and lower, the three friends let it flow. Love, sex, aging, death and just how amazing is Roger Daltrey’s scream at the end of Won’t Get Fooled Again?  The sun was beginning to peak over the eastern foothills and yet the three friends felt like they were just getting started.

Like a Coltrane solo their conversation flowed effortlessly, folding over and doubling back, constantly reinventing itself, tendrils twisting and climbing, reaching toward the morning light. There is much history between these three. Their friendship was forged in the psychedelic swirl of the Grateful Dead. Their roots go deep into the past and far towards the future. Theirs is an enduring friendship, rock solid and steady. Their conversation continued to swing from the hilarious to the sublime and to all points in between. They were improvising and playing off of each other. Coltrane continued to blow.

Outsiders listening in would  be amazed at the amount of sarcasm and abuse that’s bantered about. However one thing would be very clear, the love that these guys have for one another is undeniable. They can keep it light as a feather or go as deep as you’d be honest enough to let yourself go.

Their tequila ritual, born on a winter night in Mexico, is essential to these proceedings. The pouring of the amber liquid. The slicing of the lime. The clinking of the glasses. The deal is sealed once again. They are brothers in every sense of the word.

When I awoke this morning, the sun looked a little brighter, the sky a deeper shade of blue, the air seemed fresher, crisper, the birdsong a bit cheerier. I wasn’t thinking about covid or Trump or racial injustice or climate change. All seemed right with the world because today, pitchers and catchers reported to spring training camp.

As our long covid winter begins to wind down, major league ballplayers dust off their gear, bid farewell to their families and head down to Arizona or Texas or Florida to begin the annual rite known as spring training. Last season is a memory, the slate is wiped clean and for now every team is in first place. For one brief sun splashed moment, all things seem possible.

The start of the baseball season coincides with the beginning of spring and shares the associated themes of rebirth and renewal. A baseball season unfolds at a slower pace than the other major team sports. It begins amidst the promise of springtime, gradually giving way to the dog days of summer and culminating in the chilly air of autumn. When the first pitch of the season is thrown, spring flowers are reaching their shining faces towards the sun, trees are beginning to bud out. By the time the World Series champions mob each other atop the pitcher’s mound, the ground will be covered with frost and the colorful leaves of autumn.

In our brave new covid world, there are many unknowns surrounding the upcoming season. Barring unseen circumstances, games will begin on April 1. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner) actual fans will be allowed inside the ballparks, thankfully avoiding the sad spectacle of  seats filled with cardboard cutout humans. The air will be alive with the screams and cries, laughter and cussing of real fans, not prerecorded crowd noise piped in over the stadium’s PA system. The twin aromas of hot dogs and peanuts will waft through the air. Fourteen bucks for a beer? I will pay it, as long as I can sip that beer in a seat along the third base line with my friends on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. The starting lineups will be announced, the booming sound of the players names echo through the cavernous ballpark. The anthem will be sung, we’ll stand along with the players, caps over our hearts. The home plate umpire will shout two of the sweetest words ever uttered together in the English language; “Play ball!” I can hear it now, the snap of a brand new baseball hitting the catcher’s mitt, the crack of the bat, the mighty roar of the crowd as a majestic home run arcs into the left field bleachers. Spring is on the way and baseball is back!

Towards the end of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, James Stewart’s character George Bailey is at the end of his rope.  He has just been shown what his community would have been like had he never been born. It is a nightmare vision. He stands in the middle of a bridge in the dead of night staring down at the dark, angry river below. A cold and bitter wind blows. His head is bowed, his hands clenched in prayer. George Bailey’s voice is choked with emotion as over and over he repeats this mantra: “I want to live again, I want to live again!” Of course he does live again. In essence, George Bailey is born again. He sees his life with new eyes. His dark nightmare has given him a profound gratitude for his friends, family and the life that he has lived.

Unlike George’s nightmare which always ends, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight to this existential nightmare that we’re all mired in. Human beings, inherently social creatures, are being forced to live in a world largely devoid of meaningful human contact. When I watch a film on tv where people are smiling and enjoying themselves in a social situation, I’m filled with a profound sadness and longing for a life that seems so long ago.

I used to complain when I had to drag our kids out of bed and schlep them to school, often arriving with just minutes to spare. What I wouldn’t give for a morning like that now. Very few kids are getting sick yet they’re paying a disproportionately high price during our collective Covid nightmare. “School”  for millions of kids has been reduced to sitting in their rooms staring at a computer screen all day. No friends, no sports, no fun. For my children, distance learning has been an abject failure. They have lost an important time in their lives that they’ll never get back and that reality is absolutely heartbreaking to me.

When will we ever be able to see another persons face? See their smile? Shake their hand? Kiss them? I volunteer for a non-profit organization that gleans excess produce from farms and homes to give to the needy. I have no idea what the people I work with look like because I’ve never seen any of their faces.

On my bike ride yesterday I passed by my kids old middle school. The marquee out front reads: “Six feet apart but still together.” Does anyone really believe that? The pandemic has torn a gaping hole in our social fabric. We’ve never been so isolated. I sit in front of these Zoom meetings and desperately long for real human interaction without fear.

With virtually none of the usual social activities to mark the time, our days go by in a kind of fog, each one pretty much like the one before it. Is today Tuesday? What did we do last weekend? Did Christmas really happen. It’s all so stressful and disorientating. For most of my life I’ve been a fairly optimistic person but nowadays I find myself in unfamiliar territory. That half full glass is not quite as full as it used to be.

Fans of the Twilight Zone may remember the episode where a man finds himself in a town devoid of people. He becomes increasingly frantic as he races  from house to house in a panic looking for someone, anyone. He eventually breaks down, reduced to a sobbing wreck. As it turns out he is not in a town at all but in an isolation booth. This man is an astronaut, the booth an experiment to see how he would hold up during a long solo space mission. The empty town is his nightmare.

I desperately want things to turn out like they did at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life. We all emerge from this dark nightmare with a renewed gratitude for life and hope for the future. But of course this is real life, not the movies. Lately I’ve been feeling less like George Bailey and more like that poor guy in the Twilight Zone. Fortunately, the eleventh hour arrival of the cavalry led by Joe Biden atop his white steed may yet save us all from total disaster. I am guardedly optimistic, all of my fingers and toes are crossed. Time will tell.

I want our kids to go to school, real school, again. I want them to deal with the ups and downs of actual high school life. I want to see people’s faces again. I want to pass someone on the hiking trail without them turning away in fear. I want to hug my friends again. I want once again to go with my wife to our favorite Italian restaurant on a Saturday night. I want to sit in this wonderfully crowded place, listen to the buzz of a dozen different conversations, breathe in the heady aromas of garlic and tomato sauce and watch the bussers and waitstaff buzz around like bees. I want to go to the ballpark on a sun splashed Wednesday afternoon and sit with 30,000 other non-cardboard humans while we cheer on our beloved San Francisco Giants. I want to arrive at Russian River Brewery right when Happy Hour begins, fight my way through the crowd to the only empty seat at the bar and order my favorite IPA, sipping it slowly to savor the delicate hoppy flavors.

A virtual life is no life at all. I want to live again! 

As a child growing up in the 1960’s, the airing of The Wizard of Oz was an annual event not to be missed. It was long before VCRs, DVDs, video stores and online streaming enabled you to watch this iconic film whenever you wanted to. If you weren’t in front of your television on the night of its broadcast, you missed out. I  anticipated watching The Wizard of Oz with equal amounts of excitement and dread, dread because eventually The Wicked Witch of the West would make her appearance in the film. The Wicked Witch, played by Margaret Hamilton, was an absolutely terrifying figure to me as a little boy and one of the most malevolent and sadistic villains ever to grace the silver screen. Hamilton found her second wind later in life as the grandmotherly TV salesperson for Folgers Coffee, but she’ll always be The Wicked Witch to me.

In the film’s climactic scene, Dorothy is being held captive in the witch’s castle. Her little band of fellow travelers is outside plotting her rescue. Once she is  freed from a locked room, Dorothy and her friends are then pursued through the castle by the witch and her gang of axe and spear wielding  soldiers. Suddenly, they find themselves cornered. The Wicked Witch sets the end of her broom on fire and uses it to ignite the Scarecrow. Horrified, Dorothy grabs a nearby bucket of water and throws it on her friend. The witch is in direct line of the water. Water of course turns out to be the witch’s undoing. She slowly sinks into the ground screaming, “I’m melting, I’m melting!” When the soldiers realize what Dorothy has done, they fall to their knees in thankful supplication and proclaim, “Hail Dorothy!” The menace has finally been vanquished.

When Joe Biden places his right hand on the Bible on January 20th to take the oath of office, myself along with tens of millions of others in the United States and around the world will all breathe a collective sigh of relief. This will be our “Hail Dorothy” moment. The evil and hate filled regime of Donald Trump will finally have come to an end. He leaves in disgrace as the only president to have been impeached twice. Trump’s lasting legacy will be his complicity in the murderous and violent assault on our nation’s capitol by an armed and angry mob of his supporters, many of whom are members of violent white supremacist groups. During his four years in office, Trump has sown the seeds of hatred and division that have torn our country apart. Sadly, many of those seeds have come to fruition in the likes of senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and countless other mini-Trumps like them. The Trump presidency has been an unimaginable national nightmare. Like all nightmares, we eventually wake up but their effects can linger with us for a long time to come. 

President Biden carries a heavy weight on his shoulders. He will have the Herculean task of trying to unite our country and heal our deep national wounds. The road ahead is daunting and fraught with peril. Being a father and teacher of young children, I have no choice but to hold out hope that he is up to the task. God bless you Joe and… Hail Dorothy!

After witnessing the horrific assault on our nation’s capitol by Donald Trump’s mob, I felt an urgent need to do something life affirming, so I visited one of my favorite spots in nature.

One of the things I love about visiting a favorite place in nature are the chimerical like changes that it undergoes throughout the seasons. Nowhere is this more evident than at Bullfrog Pond in Shiloh Regional Park. I’ve written about this place before but each time I return, it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time.

Huge oak trees dot the hillsides that ring the pond, they stand in stark contrast against the washed out and uniformly gray winter sky. The sun is a spectral disc trying in vain to break through the overcast. A delicate veil of fog clings to the tops of the oaks where a huge hawk is perched, barely visible through the mist. The parched brown hillsides of summer and fall have given way to a carpet of hopeful green, winter rains having finally awakened the grasses from their long slumber.

It is so still, so quiet here today. The trees and bushes are stoic. The pond is a perfect green mirror, it’s surface unmarred by even the slightest of breezes. I can hear the chatter of an acorn woodpecker, the shrill whistling call of a red shouldered hawk, the rhythmic rapping of a woodpecker, the chit and chatter of a Stellar’s Jay. The resident black phoebe announces its arrival with a “chip, chip” as it captures an insect in mid-air.

The sun briefly breaks through the cloud cover and illuminates a large heart shaped spider’s web bejeweled with droplets from this morning’s rain. The many willows that surround the pond are naked and bony, their brown and yellowed leaves cover the ground beneath my feet. I breathe deeply and fill my lungs with the perfumed air, it smells of mud and sage, decay and rebirth.

Out of nowhere a coyote appears. It trots casually through this scene no more than 30 yards from where I sit. It stops and we briefly lock eyes, then it continues on its way. Seeing one of these animals in its natural habitat is a special occurrence that never gets old. From its pointy snout through the many browns and grays of its body to its black tipped tail this coyote is a stunningly beautiful animal.

The overcast is beginning to break up, the sky now more blue than cloud. A slight breeze picks up cooling the sweat on my back from the hike in. I sit in the midst of all this wonder, grateful for the day, grateful to be alive.

There’s this wonderful Hobbit hole of a used bookstore in Santa Rosa and it is a bibliophile’s dream. When I walk into Treehorn Books I feel as if I’m entering one of those archaic shops in the Diagon Alley of Harry Potter novels. There are books piled on top of books, books behind books, books on the floor, it’s a veritable cacophony of books!  Wheeled metal ladders provide access to the top of the ten foot high shelves that line the walls. At Treehorn you’ll find books on every subject imaginable; from UFO’s to Metaphysics, the Kennedy assassination to rafting down the Yang Tse River. Romance novel maven Danielle Steele is represented here as well as classic authors like Faulkner, Hemingway and all points in between. You name it, Treehorn’s got it. I once found a book there written by a woman who travelled around France with her family on a quest to find the source of the ingredients in the baguettes she and her family enjoyed while on holiday there. Not exactly best seller stuff but quirky, original and a good read; in other words the typical book tucked away in the stacks here.

The dim, yellow cast lighting at Treehorn Books adds an extra layer of mystery to the place. There’s just enough light to read by but it’s low enough to where I feel like I can hide in plain sight among the stacks. And the smell! For me there’s something so comforting and familiar about that universal used bookstore smell. I’m sure there’s a scientific explanation as to what chemical compounds make up that smell but I like to think that it’s equal parts age, wisdom and wonder.

I rarely enter Treehorn with a specific title or author in mind. With no plan I have no expectations; I just open my mind and browse. I never know what I’m going to find here so it’s kind of like hunting for buried treasure. I read the book spines, check out the cover art, read the synopsis on the dust jacket. If it moves me, I usually buy it. I occasionally find interesting things inside of the books. On a book I recently purchased someone had written this Serbian proverb on the inside back cover: Be noble for you are made of stars. Be humble for you are made of earth. I thought that was so neat, a message out of the blue reminding me that life should be lived with grace and humility.

I have a particular fondness for a used book. The creases in the cover are like wrinkles. The yellowed and dog-eared pages are all telltale signs that this book has passed through many hands. In some way, reading a used book is like having a shared experience with someone whom I’ve never meet.

The price of each book here is written in pencil on the title page. If there are multiple copies of a book that I’m interested in, I’ll check the prices on all of them. Occasionally the same two books in the exact same condition will have two different prices! The human touch, it’s all over this bookstore. When I’m inside, I can feel the deep sense of love and respect that the  owners have for books and how much they value reading.

When the COVID lockdown happened last March, Treehorn was one of the first places I thought of. Would they survive? A world without used bookshops seemed unimaginable to me. Initially, bookshops were closed because they were not considered “essential”. Can you believe that? To me reading is essential! As a grade school teacher, I’d always tell my students, “Reading is the most important thing you’ll do in school.” Before they were allowed to reopen, I called Treehorn a couple of times with a list of books that I wanted to buy. Even though he wasn’t supposed to, the owner took my order over the phone and arranged to meet me out front with my books in a plain brown paper bag. I felt like we were co-conspirators in a drug deal or something.

Books are essential. You can stare at a Kindle until you fry your retinas, but in my mind there’s no substitute for a real book. Technology has improved many things in our world but books are not one of them. I love the feel of a book in my hands and that rustling leaves sound the pages make as I turn them. With anticipation I open the cover, eager to unlock the secrets within.