I remember our library then was at the back of the huge stage (the Broadway-type one with heavy curtains) fronting our quadrangle. My elementary school is home to a lot of other-worldly ghost stories (kaya nga may SPIRIT sa name...joke) and being in that dark, musty library gives you the literal and figurative chills. It was like entering a huge cellar or dungeon and half the time I have to check to see if there are still people around...real people.
Being a reading neophyte, I pulled out a fairy tale compilation book (go easy on the chuckles…I was in fourth grade!). It was as huge as a one-half-size illustration board. I remember lugging it from the library to my school service. I cringe now remembering how silly I might have looked back then.
The rest as they say… is “pages and pages” of history. My love for print soon escalated to almost-addiction. By sixth grade I have ravished all the hardbound Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books in our new library (our school moved to a new location when I was in fifth grade). My name became famous for being the most-seen name on the borrower’s card pasted at the back of the books. And it became no surprise that after school, I became a regular at our now well-lit-by-sunshine library as a student-librarian (a.k.a Book Lovers Club member).
From fairy tales, I’ve moved to more mature books...the thick bestsellers. Sidney Sheldon. Stephen King. John Grisham. Nicholas Sparks. Patricia Cornwell. Anita Shreve. Yes, even Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts. You name it, chances are I’ve read it. My extra allowance was spent on books and soon I had my own private mini library. But the weird part is that I seldom read the books I buy. I read the ones I borrow.
Like people, there are books that forever change the way you see things. And there are books that pull you in its own vortex of swirling emotions. Until your heart bleeds. I am man enough to admit that there are two books that have made me cry.
This Saturday, I was wandering into a bargain bookstore. Then I saw "it". I reached for it and gingerly touched its hardbound cover. Without looking, I can still remember what the cover looks like. But seeing it again I was transported back in time, and the emotions I felt while reading it came rushing back. I stand there, sober and melancholic for some time.
The book is only 171-pages long but the poignant story transcends a lifetime. What took me aback was that the story was rather simple; it’s something you can read from a standard Mills & Boon novel. But there is a surreal power in the story that really tugs at your heartstrings. The characters were so real and their dilemma was so excruciatingly simple and deliciously tragic that you end up wishing things have been different for them. Their loss became your loss.
Call me sappy. But the love atheist in me somehow succumbed to the sentimental beauty of this novel.
The book is called The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. And yes, I did buy it... again.
***
He stood there and stared. Neither of them moved, they already had said goodbye. For thirty seconds he stood there, his photographer’s eyes missing nothing, making their own image that he would never lose.
He closed the door, ground the gears, and was crying again as he turned left on the country road toward Winterset. He looked back just before a grove of trees would block his view and saw her sitting cross-legged in the dust where the lane began, her head in her hands.
***
P.S. Because of my inner connection with this book, I refused to watch the movie version even if starred the great Meryll Streep and Clint Eastwood. I believe no one can do justice to a book this powerful.
And I tried reading other Robert James Waller novels but nothing came close. Everything paled compared to this.
In my bucket list, I want to write a book this earnest. In a world full of digital dreams and where relationships are downloaded and deleted by a mere touch of a fingertip, it’s nice to go back to a more basic tragedy: the meeting of destined souls no matter what the odds are and the search for that ever-elusive belongingness.