In the past year or two, I've had the sad opportunity of walking into a used book store and doing the self-absorbed routine I always do:  I go to the "I's" and look to see if any of my books are on the shelf.  Most times, there are a couple, a used copy of When You Go Away or One Small Thing.  If I'm lucky, in the new section is the latest novel, and I can leave feeling completely validated by the universe.

But here's the next step in this process:  I pick up the book and look to see if I inscribed it.  Now, more often than not, the inscription is my basic bookstore signing inscription:  Jessica Barksdale Inclan.  Sometimes, there is the "To Ann.  Thanks for reading."  Or, "Always Believe.  Jessica Barksdale Inclan."

At other times, though, like yesterday at The Book Shop in Hayward, California, it was:  Dear Marjorie.  Thanks for all of your support.  Love, Jessica.

As you can imagine, I know Marjorie.  In fact, I've known Marjorie for years.  She worked with my former spouse for over twenty years, I was a guest at her house several times for parties, and I went to her book group five times to speak,  my book, Walking With Her Daughter being one of the books discussed, the book in which this inscription rested.

A year ago, I walked into Half Price Books on Shattuck in Berkeley, and not only found books I'd signed to my friend Sally but those I'd signed to a colleague, Rose.  Six total, all signed, personally, as if both of them decided this was the year for clearing everything out.

First, before I go into my metaphor, let me say that personally, I advise never, ever selling your signed books.  If you  are the author and don't have the time to process the experience, it just basically feels like crap to run across your books signed to friends out in the universe.  It's not so great seeing them sold on ebay, either.  I think you can all live without the 6.50 my book would have gotten you, and I think the entire collection would take up less than one and a half feet on your book shelf.  I have all the books my friends, former students, and colleagues signed to me, some of which I haven't even read.  But I never want them to find them on the used bookstore shelves, and you know all authors go and hunt for them.  It's a kindness to leave them in the downstairs bedroom bookshelf and be done with it, letting your children sell them in the estate sale in 40 years.  Please, for the love of god.

But since this little stinging slap has occurred to me before, yesterday made me see how I was seeing only one end of the transaction.  As I held Marjorie's former book, I forgot that she and her sister had made dinner for the book group and me the night I came to talk about the story.  I can still see this amazing roast that Rosalie's sister made--I think it was actually a Beef Wellington!  There was wine and chat, and  hadn't thought of that night in years.  I forgot that the twenty women there bought my book, fed me very well, and then wanted to actually talk about this story, one where a woman has to go to Bali to bring home her daughter's body, her daughter who was killed in a terrorist attack.  And then the next year, they called me again, fed me again, talked to me again about The Instant When Everything is Perfect.  Maybe there wasn't Beef Wellington for that meal, but there was great fun.

Then I realized I forgot that my colleague who sold back a book last year actually came to my reading and then came to the party afterward.  Again, merriment and laughter and a book purchase, things she gave me, and that I took without really remembering until I saw the book in the shelf.  My other friend also came to readings, and was very helpful when I received offers from two agents to represent me.  There was counsel and talk and assistance.  the fact that she had more than one book to sell back shows that she gave to me, came to my readings, listened.

No, what I focused on first was the rejection not the joy.  And I think that this is the way it is with divorce and the breaking up of any relationship.  When we first feel the stinging slap, we focus on the loss, the rejection, the hurt, the betrayal.  When I saw the books' inscriptions, something--despite the cliché--sank inside me.  They don't want me any more, I thought.  My books aren't good enough for them to keep in their homes.

But at one point, they were.  For years, my books were in their homes, and from what I know, actually read.  The books were bought with love and kindness and then when they were no longer working, were longer of use, were sold back, given to the stream of words for others to buy.  it's possible that one of these used books will end up in the hands of someone who really loves it, who will never sell it back, who might read it again.

And that's what I feel it's like for us, in relationships.  We need to let them go when they no longer work.  When they are no longer of use.  When they no longer serve any purpose to us.  When we no longer have room for them.  We move on, let go, buy another book.  We know that somehow, the book we sold will find another home, and we move on to our new story, the one we want now.  We find the story we want to read, and we leave behind the one we already read and thought about and remember fondly.  But we leave anyway.  We move on.

Next time I find a book with a personal inscription, I will go to the first part, the part where the book was sold and handed over.  I will think about that person's face, about who that person is to me still.  I will remember that part of the transaction, and then I won't bemoan the parting, the letting go, the starting over.

Jessica