And so we begin...

I thought long and hard about the first book to read to you. I considered the books on my shelf and thought about which one would be the most meaningful to me….and you.

Which one would allow me to walk through this difficult time with you. Difficult because, well, being a baby is tough!

Which one could provide me with some distraction and which one would hold me long enough while I held you?

I narrowed down my selection to two.

"A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich" by Solzhenitsyn

Or

A collection of short stories by Dostoyevsky – Headlined by “Notes from Underground” setting my focus on “White Nights”, the first story in the collection.

About 3 weeks ago, I started both books at the same time to see which one I would gravitate to.

Dostoyevsky won.

I have a bit of a history with this book – more importantly, with “White Nights”.

It was the Fall of 1994. I paid a whopping $3.50. I’m not being sarcastic when I say “a whopping $3.50”.

When I bought this book, I can almost be sure that I weighed out the book’s purchase against buying some fine cigarette rolling tobacco – this brand in particular.

Hummmm… smokes or a book….Hummmmm….

I have carried this little book in my jeans pocket, my jacket pocket, several backpacks and probably a suitcase or two. It has rubbed up against the tobacco pouch above, bottles of beer, and vodka, dirty clothes, other Russian books, and placed into storage in a hot attic for well over 3 years before landing in a place of honor on my bookshelf where I pulled it from a few weeks ago.

Take a look at my copy below.

The condition of this book – even though it’s still good – shows a bit of wear.

See the man on the cover?

A man looking at the world from a dark, solitary basement cell.

At the time of purchase, the person I identified with the most in my life was that man. Sure, the cover’s artwork had nothing to do with Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from Underground”…or “White Nights” but it was a fine illustration to lure in a potential reader…in a certain mental state…like me, and well, it worked.

There are blocks of time in life where you are allowed to be in a bit of a funk.

You don’t quite know where you are, what you’re doing or where you’re going.

You need to do some soul searching, deep introspection really attempt to discover who you are before moving on and accepting a reality – hopefully of your choosing.

The discovery of White Nights.

There was a nice chill in the air but I was warm enough after riding my bike to my new daily hangout – the public library.

Autumn 1994 in central Jersey.

I had recently decided that I would spend time at a small public library just to get out into the world.

I noticed that this particular branch didn’t have the usual collection of miscreants – so I thought that I’d take on the challenge of filling that role.

I’d slum around reading magazines taking smoke breaks on the benches out front, leering at the patrons…for no particular reason but to fill my new role, and inject a little discomfort into innocent library patrons lives.

But honestly, look at me.

Am I the face of menace?

After reading my share of mags over the first couple of weeks, and settling into my new role I decided that I’d like to pick up some long fiction reading.

Still in love with Russia, I sought out the library’s Russian author holdings. Not really into Chekhov, and not finding any Babel, Dostoyevsky was up next in the stacks.

So it was in the autumn of 1994 that I discovered “White Nights” on the shelves of that little branch library in central Jersey.

I held back tears the library’s reading room struggling through the story.

I was alone, lost, confused and most of all, in love…with an idea of a woman I had created in my mind…(more on that later…maybe) but I was also in love with the characters Dostoyevsky presented.

That was 16 years ago.

So much has changed but I’m still in love with this little story.

Mr. Dostoyevsky and “White Nights” occupy a very special place in my heart, a part of my heart’s history – and even though it looked like it was a place that was dark and lonely, it was a special time for me.

Those days are over, and I look back on them and the lessons learned. I’ll read “White Nights” to you and perhaps some ghosts of those days will surface and you know, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’ll recognize their existence and will allow them to come and then politely escort them back to where they belong - my memories.

It's Time!

So my little son, I’m afraid that I haven’t done such a good job at getting this project rolling. Admittedly, I have found it difficult to read to you. I think that you are still at such a young age, that the act of sitting still, listening to my voice is a bit difficult for you to do. And knowing that you don’t have the ability to control anything around you or yourself at this young age…sitting and listening to me read is probably the last thing you would want to do if you had a choice.

One thing that I’d like to place here just as a little side-note – something for both of us to stumble across someday is a bit of your behavior that both your mother and I find quite interesting and fascinating. The three of us spend quite a bit of time on the sofa. Along the back of the sofa are my four large bookcases. Ever since we brought you home, as an infant just a few days old, each time we would place you facing the bookcases, you would stare that the books with such a look of concentration and almost a look of determination and defiance towards the books as if you we challenging the books themselves to a battle of existence. We knew that you couldn’t see the individual books at that distance, but perhaps you were looking at the shapes and the two basic colors that you could perceive. Now, as you are approaching your seventh week of life with us, your vision has improved, and you still look at the books as if you want a “dust-up” with them.

It would be silly of me to think anything other than you have found comfort in the horizontal and vertical structure the books present, but I like to imaging that you have made a connection to my books, and please know that they will wait there for you.

Even though I have not found the ability to read to you from my books, I feel that you already have a relationship with them…and so, I am pleased.