Tenuous connections

Speaking of reading on the beach. Have you ever checked out a library book and found sand between its pages or trapped along its edge by its plastic library jacket? For some reason I love it when stuff like that happens. Who was this person? What beach? Did they read or maybe just let the book lie in the sand? I wonder, but I don't really want to know. Knowing would break the spell. I like bookmarks. I have several little piles of them in my house. But they rarely seem to be in the right place at the right time. Other people must have the same problem. Library books often have pictures, grocery lists, match book covers, receipts, even personal letters in them. Once I even found a long dark hair carefully placed mid book. This triangle of author, and me, and the person who had the book before me always fascinates. Sometimes a church bulletin will ask the question, "Do you want to be a part or apart?" For me this is a weighty question, not easily answered. I once went through a long, strong Emily Dickinson/Virginia Woolf period. I became enchanted with the idea that we were three soul mates who just missed each other on this planet earth. Emily Dickinson died in May 1886. Virginia Woolf was only four years old then. She died in March of 1941. I wasn't born until the following July. If they had known me, would they have seen me as a dolt who barely grasped what they were trying to say? Well now, we'll never know, will we? Apart is definitely safer.