For decades of my life I was a book abuser. I turned the corner of a page to mark my place.
My grandfather considered all books sacred. Each new one had to be opened page by page and a finger run down the seam.
He died when I was four: but his memory of treating everything so they last forever still exists in my mind probably because he lived through the depression.
I inherited my grandmother's waffle iron bought around WWI and only gave it away when I moved overseas in 1988 and it wouldn't work with the French electrical system.
I didn't inherit my grandfather's preservation gene with books, nor did I consider them sacred as he did, but like all my family, reading was almost as essential as breathing.
I never used book marks, thinking them almost an annoyance, clutter.
Then someone gave me a wooden bookmark, a pretty little thing. I used it. I was almost reformed from page-corner-turning.
Oops! I dropped it. It broke in two. My husband laughed when I glued it back together.
Two years ago we went to the Montreux Noël Marché. One of the chalets was decorated with books that were not for sale. The owners of the chalet made metal bookmarks. The many ends were things like cars, dogs, cats, flowers and a book.
Even though I try not to have duplicates of things when one is enough (it saves clutter) and I had a loved bookmark, I bought the one with a book. After all, I do read more than one book at a time. And it was a memory of the day with its chalets, Alps and Lake Léman.
In April in Argelès, we went into the librarie, not a library but a store that sells paper products, magazines and books. My eye caught a display of a metal floral garden bookmark in blues, purple and greens. I couldn't resist. I didn't try.
I no longer turn the corner of a page to mark my place. I use one of my three beautiful bookmarks alternating between the two books I'm reading and the one waiting on the shelf for me to pick up next.
My grandfather would be so happy I am no longer a book abuser.
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