Windows to the Imagination: What Reading
Books Does for Me
When I read, for once the ticking clock is silent. With
my head in a book, my anxiety about project due dates, and my peanut butter
cookie craving, that itchy mosquito bite, and my sister calling me to come look
at a hummingbird feeder all become background noise.
Books, good books, shows me life through different
windows and dunk me in emotion. With their settings they take me places I may
never go in real life. I see the glittering lights of fabulous parties, smell
the stench on a crowded immigrant ship, feel cold Siberian snows on my bare
feet—I bristle when my valet criticizes my fashion sense, and then I wonder how
hilariously shallow I might be. When the enemy army begins to fire I wonder,
weak-kneed, if I would run. Once I taste Turkish delight, I wonder what I am
willing to do to eat another bite. I become the characters, the lovable ones,
the hateable ones, and the in-between ones. Their experiences teach me of
hardship and of comfort, of hate and of hope, of disillusionment and dreams, of
lies and of selflessness. Reading shows me the me I am, the me’s that I could
be, and the me’s I want to be. When I finally pull my head out of the water, dry
my face, and come back to my own window with its old view, I have to stop wondering
what I would do and choose which of those me’s will be.
I think this was the first year that the local shop, Chapel Books, had an essay contest. That meant there was a small pool of entries. That was good for me! I won out of maybe 4 other entries. In addition to a Oxford paperback classic of my choice, I received a $50 check, part of which I plan to use to book shop.
Happy writing!
