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| 2019 Shelfie. My bookshelf is currently a mess so I can't make a 2020 one yet. |
Last night, before I went to bed, I took a quick glance at Twitter, and saw that "law of attraction" was trending. I didn't have energy to investigate further, but when I woke up earlier today, I had the idea to describe how I somehow used principles of attraction to complete my Anne Rice book collection--even before I knew what "law of attraction" really was.
I first met Anne Rice through a schoolmate. We were in fourth year high school, and by summer we would have graduated. Louella saw me reading Salem's Lot and said, "Oh, you like vampires? Meet me on Friday after school. I'll lend you a book." That book was Interview with the Vampire, which I spent the whole weekend reading, and was a turning point in my life. After I read the last page I stared out the window for hours for what felt like having gone through a thoroughly religious experience.
In college, and on limited allowance, I would scour secondhand bookstores (there were plenty along Recto Avenue back then; maybe there still are, but I haven't been there in a while), for mass market paperback editions of Anne's books. Soon, I'd be out of school, couldn't even finish the second semester of my freshman year, without getting into trouble.
So I had my handful of Anne Rice pocketbooks and was reading voraciously. I had at that point, I think, all five of the Vampire Chronicles, the Mayfair Witches trilogy. So about eight titles. Around that time I joined a Christian theater ministry, the artistic and spiritual director of which proceeded to emotionally and sexually abuse me. John (not his real name) said I will go to hell for reading books with titles such as The Vampire Lestat and Memnoch the Devil and the only way to save my soul was for me to burn the books.
I was seventeen, and I believed him. Though I couldn't bear to light the match. Instead, I left them stacked in a plastic bag outside our gate one evening. In the morning, they were gone.
I will jump forward to a few weeks before December 2012, the fabled end of the world as per the Mayans. Anne had just published The Wolf Gift. I was no longer an out-of-school youth, but working at customer service with moderate income. I found Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt at a bookstore. Surely I won't go to hell if I read this? Just this?
I loved Out of Egypt. And I fell in love again with Anne's writing. And then I thought, perhaps it's time to build my collection once again. And I did. So for the books beginning The Wolf Gift and onwards, I had no problems procuring hardcover first editions. (Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra was not published in hardcover, though.) And I did have a hard time getting Prince Lestat because it was sold out in an instant from all local bookstores in Metro Manila, no matter that I had made a reservation weeks in advance. I did get to buy a first edition weeks and weeks later.
But the trick was, how to rebuild my collection of her past novels? I suddenly had this desire to get first editions as much as possible. But how?
I know law of attraction gurus say all you need to do is to believe you have it, think about it often, really feel like you've already received it, and be grateful. I didn't know all these things! What I did instinctively was assign a special place on my bookshelf for the incoming Anne Rice books. I left a row vacant for them. I assigned, maybe visualized, how I would arrange the books--in chronological order.
I wanted to have first editions. It felt like a tribute to Anne. I was filled up with this desire.
I wouldn't say that I was consumed by desire and voila! The books appeared on the shelf. No. It didn't quite work out that way. I had to do some leg work. I had to somehow "prove" to Something that I really, really, really wanted these books back in my life, in first editions as much as possible. I don't live in the States. I can't travel to NOLA and visit the Garden District Book Shop.
My hardcover copies of The Vampire Armand and Interview with the Vampire I got from a bookseller in Baguio. I had contacted this person online, wired him my payment, not knowing if he'll hold his end of the bargain. I had to ask friends of mine, a Christian couple, who lived in Baguio, to pick the books up for me.
My copy of Exit to Eden I chanced upon a secondhand bookstore that was being refashioned to become a grocery. They were getting rid of all their unsold books, and there it was. Exit to Eden.
There was a secondhand bookstore in the Shopping Center of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, which closed. The owners said it was because the young generation don't read fiction anymore, and they ran out of business. I tracked these owners to their home address--I kid you not--because I got a tip that they owned first editions of the Beauty Trilogy. That set is now sitting on my shelf.
I received Beauty's Kingdom from Anne Rice herself, with an autograph and dedication.
I found an autographed copy of The Witching Hour at our church annual book sale! I love Union Chuch of Manila!
So slowly, over the expanse of several months, and certainly going online looking for booksellers, I was building my collection again. I practically begged a bookseller for her last copies of Blood and Gold, Blood Canticle, and The Feast of All Saints. I had to prove in some way that I was not just a middleman who buys and sells books, but an actual Anne Rice fan, a true booklover, before she parted with her copies.
Booksale store, of course, was very helpful. Sometimes I wouldn't have enough money to buy a first edition find, so that I would have to pray that by payday and I come back, the book would still be there waiting for me.
So, yes, the power of intense desire, coupled with the necessary legwork to prove that the desire wasn't just momentary, but one that will consume anything that stood in its way towards fruition, is truly a powerful force. I also at the beginning suspected but pretty soon believed that the books wanted me as much as I wanted them. That I was the reader Anne Rice had in mind when she wrote her books. The attraction wasn't just one way. It was mutual.
Of course, I also used this same energy to get the books of other authors I love. Umberto Eco. Sue Monk Kidd. Wally Lamb. I can't say for sure if that was indeed the law of attraction at work, but when I look at my shelf, I really, truly feel good. I feel grateful. And I feel that if I really set my heart on anything, I can achieve it.
