Something or someone I can't live without

Chocolate? Birthday cake? Animals? Hawaii? Sleep? A very hard question.

I think that the material object I cannot live without is a book. I cannot imagine not having access to other people's thoughts, whether poems or prose. I couldn't live without the joy I feel when I get a view into another world, or have my mind stretched by new ideas. I love the feel of a book in my hands, the smell of the paper, the pleasure of turning pages.

I am deeply horrified, yes, in a Luddite sort of way, by e-readers. I can't cuddle with a screen, no matter how handy it is. Yes, I would have access to far more books if I read them that way, but I like having my living room ringed with bookcases filled to overflowing with the volumes I've collected over the years. I have the tiny hardback edition of The House at Pooh Corner that my aunt and uncle gave me on their first visit to see me, back in 1969. I have my stash of boarding school fiction and horse stories from my English childhood; when I feel alienated from everything else in life, I can go pick up The Horse from Black Loch and escape into the Highlands but also into myself, back when I was nine. I can remember the smell of the air in my bedroom in our house in England and the quality of the light as I hid away from chores and other cares. I have shelves packed with the classics I read in high school: one shelf of Greek philosophy, one shelf of Russian literature (I remember the sheer joy of being introduced to Chekhov), one shelf of German literature (reading Kafka and Mann my junior year of high school was a revelation), and a dozen shelves filled with other usual suspects (Shakespeare, Wordsworth, the Brontes, James, Wharton, Woolf, Auden, and so on). Then there is my collection of art history tomes, from survey books I had to buy as a freshwoman at Bryn Mawr to specialist volumes on everything from Egypt, Greece, and Rome, late antiquity to Gothic England, and on to Holbein, Van Dyck, Hogarth, the Pre-Raphaelites, Alma-Tadema, Whistler, and oh, Sargent, Sargent, Sargent, as well as history of architecture and design, and theory. It is sad that my husband has banished at least 1, 000 more of my books to exile in the garage. He claims there isn't room, but it all depends on how one defines "room" and whether floor-to-ceiling bookcases are part of one's aesthetic.

As far as people I cannot live without--I haven't tried to live without my parents, nor do I wish to. At this point, I cannot imagine living without my husband, although the idea is tempting from time to time. My children help show me the good in life, even when they drive me to insanity. Losing them would destroy me, or come very close to it. Then there are my friends, those special people who help me see beyond the cracks in the surface of myself and keep me grounded. I need the people who have known me forever as much as the people I have met recently: from Maria and Chris, who grew up beside me; to Shona, Tim, and Matthew in England; to Heather, Wendy, and Joe who saw me through high school; to Stacey and Rachel who made Bryn Mawr the great experience it was; to Thomenon and Gale, the only people in graduate school with kindness AND great senses of humor; to Katie and Chris, who helped me survive nursing school; and at least a hundred others whom I love. In addition, my adoptee community has meant the difference between self-hatred and celebration: thank you to Linda, Joy, Mia, Jeni, Liz, Laura, Zack, Melissa, Alisha, Krista, Lori A and Lori C, Becky...the list is very, very long. I need ALL of you. And most importantly, my sister from another mother, Nalini, who from the minute we met has understood me intuitively, from the good parts to the darkest recesses of yuck, and loves me anyway.

I really do love my dog, and don't want to be without him, either. He loves me so very unconditionally, except when he feels that I am infringing in his space on my bed.