Battered books and lost memories

My books are among my most priced possessions. I own over a thousand books and each and every one is carefully selected; I spent hours searching for the perfect edition with the most beautiful binding, and as I read them, I turn the pages carefully, always making sure that I don't damage the  spine or, even worse, leave a dogeared page behind. While I do buy books for the stories they contain, I also consider them to be objects of beauty and the most beautiful decoration one could ever own.

But it hasn't always been that way. My first set of Harry Potter books is proof of that.

In fact, my first set of Harry Potter books are a mess. They are framed with cracked spines and bent covers and inside they are filled with tea stains, torn pages, dogears, underlined sentences and even faint traces of fallen tears. They have been read my mother, my sister and my 10-year old self. They have traveled with me to France, California and China. They have a history of their own. And just by looking at them, you can see it. These books have been loved. 

These books are from a time, where I was so enchanted by the stories and the words they had to tell, that I didn't care about cracked spines or food stains. I didn't care that I owned half of the books in hardbacks and half in paperbacks, because I couldn't wait for the perfect edition, I couldn't wait for a hardback publication. The thought alone was unthinkable. Just like I couldn't take breaks from reading, so I ate while I read, not caring about what I spilled on the books. What mattered was the story. Nothing else.

And while I would never be capable of that kind of book vandalism today, I still appreciate the marks I left on them back then. Because this means that the books have a story of their own to tell. When I reread these particular editions, I do not only reread Rowling's story; I also reread my own, hiding between the lines and in the stains, dogears and margin notes. The torn pages in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince suddenly make me remember my uncontrollable crying over Dumbledore's death while the underlined sentences in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire reminds me of how I took notes of every foreboding sentence, trying to figure out what would happen in the next volume. My edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone automatically opens on my favourite chapter, caused by an infinite number of rereadings on how to enter Diagon Alley. 

What may look like battered books are actually a capsule of lost memories. A wordless diary written between already existing lines.