I’m a hardcore thrift shopper.  There isn’t a secondhand store within 40 miles that I haven’t combed.  Slightly odd tastes + years of mostly-broke-ness = serious browsing skills.  From where the chair where I’m sitting, I can see scads of used treasures: an old Hermes typewriter, a set of brandy snifters, a bamboo-handled umbrella with one broken spoke, a nightlight advertising a nameless freak show, a wrought iron owl candlestick, a black faux fur coat, and dozens of books.  Oh–and the sleeves of the sweater I’m currently wearing.

So I knew this day would come — the day when I would find one of my books on a thrift store’s shelves.

I always thought it would be one of the Books of Elsewhere.  The odds were for it.  There are quite a lot of copies in various editions and languages floating around out there.  I knew it might even be a signed copy.  I’ve autographed thousands of books by now, so it wasn’t unlikely.

Instead, on the “just arrived” shelf at my local Salvation Army shop, there it was.  My poetry chapbook, Cherma.  Published by a small press, sold in a handful of bookstores. Signed.

And the weird thing was that I felt no sting at all.

At all.

Instead, there was just a sort of friendly recognition — like the feeling you get when you run into an acquaintance at the grocery store, and you’ve actually got brushed hair and decent clothes on for once.

The poems in Cherma were written in 2005, accepted by Parallel Press in 2007, and finally published in 2010.  I’m sure I wouldn’t write the very same poems in the very same way today, but I don’t dislike them.  In fact, I even have some faith in their general not-bad-ness.  Enough time and mental distance have spread out between then and now that I don’t feel personally connected t0 the text.  All the cords have stretched and thinned and finally, painlessly, split.  

It’s pretty great.

I’m still waiting to get to that point with The Books of Elsewhere.  When I can not just mentally but emotionally accept the fact that not every reader will love the books, or even like them, let alone want to buy and keep them forever; when critical or downright cruel reviews won’t hurt.  When the mixture of faith and fear I’ve invested in them boils down to something solidly okay–kind of like every rating on Goodreads, from Twilight to Vanity Fair, seems to average out over time to approximately 3.8.  The point when I can see any comment or review, good or bad, any shiny new copy in a big bookstore or any cast-off copy in a thrift shop, and feel that same painless Hey,  I know you.  Nice to see you.  And then move on.