Reading as Refuge

I did not plan to write this but Kenny’s piece and this article have converged with my own thoughts, and now they overflow.

What gets me there each day passing each day doesn’t change though, no. Words. They kept me sane and they’ll save you too.

Words. Just words.

Kenny Mah, A Deconstruction of Daisies

Over the past few months, I’ve looked forward more and more to quiet times with good coffee and a good book. There is relief from the cruelty and malignancy of the world found in the pages of the books, in the words crafted by other people, and the worlds conjured by them. Through the rows and rows of black type, meaning seeps back into life, bringing with it reminders of beauty and worth and goodness.

It is no surprise that I should turn to reading for refuge. As an only child, books were my constant companions. I did not mind being by myself (contrary to the belief of those around me that only children must crave the company of other kids) as long as the space I was in included books. Growing up, and finding unexpected - and fragile – pleasure in friendships, books became sources of inspiration, ambition and adventure. Growing older, books frequently restore my faith in humanity.

Billy Thompson, in his essay “Soulbroken“, claims books to represent still unopened doors and windows that real life may have shut forever:

Growing up is eliminating possibilities. Who I am is as much what I am not and what I will not be. That’s not meant to be a dour take on things; growing up, I mean really growing up, acting the part and filling the role, is an accomplishment, its own reward. But with it comes mortgage payments and home repairs and a car note with car repairs and insurance and gas and not-yet-born-but-planned-for children and their braces, tuition, etc., and so on. I was going to live in a one-stoplight town and then in New York City and on an island where I would lead snorkeling trips. I was going to live in a western city and a foreign one; and I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to live in Tornado Alley. I was going to join a band and the NBA and go teach English to kids in the Far West. I was going to drink more and drink less. I was going to be an actor. I was going to do nothing but do it somewhere else where it’d be something. Etc., and so on. As it is, I am a technical writer, by which those aforementioned bills, with the help of my wife’s salary, are paid. So, a technical writer I’ll remain. Because once amongst your responsibilities, there is no going back to being tether-free. You can always start again, as it were, but you can never really start over.

That’s what creates the void books fill. In them all possibilities still exist and I can live with them and in them.

Me, I find comfort in words – some more than others. The world may be at war around me and deliberate malice may abound, but as long as I can still find pleasure in the beautifully crafted phrase and humour in elegant plays of words against one another, living can still, somehow, go on.

Filed under: Books, Personal Note , Books, reading, words, Writing