I start the day with a book. I end the day with a book.
It’s like breathing, a necessity, an essential. I can’t go for long without contact with this other world. It’s always in my mind. It’s everything.
I write. I read. Always have; always will. Always looking for something and knowing that’s where I would find it; that’s where it lives. Where I live.
I’m still searching. Still writing. Still reading. It’s an ever evolving journey, accumulating something too precious to ever give up and it’s saddens me to see the waning of this world.
A few days ago it was one of those rare hot, sunny days, the dead pulse of true heat, and walking past a café, tables outside, mostly taken, people talking, on their phones, and there was a woman in the centre, alone, still, reading a book and I smiled. A fellow soul, lost in this other world, gone; this limitless imaginative unfolding that can lead to such transformative experiences. I always notice a fellow reader, pick them out, fascinated by what book they are lost in, trying to discretely see the title; it’s like coming across someone who shares a secret.
Books have been my companions from the beginning. From being transported to a magical place before I could even read myself, I knew this was for me, part of me, something I could never be separated from. I knew this mattered and couldn’t get enough. It was the way in and the way out. Something that allowed me to hang on, even at those times when everything falls away. It was always something that soothed.
Magical tales, so long ago and yet spinning back through time, ever present, the soft voice speaking through a night of pulsing pain and feverishness, but sucked into the dreamy world of other lands, talking cats, sorcery, redemption, carrying me on loosening waves of reality, as I sat compelled on my mum’s knee, book before us, words and illustrations swimming before me, as her voice whispered the spell that was eternal. A pact made from the first words, the spell cast.
Moominland Midwinter read by the glow on an oil lamp as power cuts left us in dreamy darkness. Imagination’s playground. Three sisters, rapt, transported into this other dreamlike place; two listening, one reading, even mum and dad lost in the atmosphere, the whole house was gone, sucked into the snowy magic realm of Moominland, agog, travelling deep, opening the doors. Never to be forgotten.
Everywhere I’ve lived has had rooms full of books. I love being surrounded by them, it’s comforting, inspiring, energy giving, they are living things. Shelves stacked, ledges wedged with books, piled against the wall, around my bed protecting me, wherever they would fit.
If I go in a house and there are no books, it feels weird, wrong, like something is missing; the same as when there are no animals, like the soul of the place is absent, a hollowness, something vital, life-giving is not there. Something I need as much as food and water.
There is something so precious about reading, absorbing another’s words and being transported by them if they do it well; that magic and power is something amazing, the immensity you can have in your hand, this entire reality, to enter another world, another soul, another mind; the good stuff, that which connects, sets your soul aflame, sends a tingle down your spine, a thrill through your spirit, when something resonates, captures your attention, blows your mind, when you feel like this persons knows, they get it, they understand, or say something you recognize even if you didn’t know it yet, it allows the realization.
The beauty of language to be able to say so much, in so many different ways, from poetry, through short stories, through novels, in all their different forms, is mind-blowing, mesmerizing and addictive. There is so much to explore, it’s a never-ending journey but one full of magical discoveries that will change you. All these worlds that wait, just waiting to be explored, experienced, the living essence of literature waiting to enter every soul, to transform them, but too few understand the value and power of it.
Finding your tribe through exploring books of all kinds, reading widely and muchly, finding those favourites, those writers who become friends, companions, stalwarts, always there, always beside you, to those who just pass through; those who touch your heart, your soul, those who make you inspired, disturbed, amazed, sad, transformed. The whole unfolding journey of finding the way through, a whole life’s path, discovering and expanding, learning and evolving, allowing it all to enter and accumulate, to grow and explore, unearth and inspire, past and present, is a journey so worth taking; the inner journey all are on whether they know it or not.
All my life books have been my constant companions. But I’m finding less and less people around me read any more. That makes me sad. That’s why the sole reader stands out, jumps out at me, on the bus, in the cafe, on a park bench, like the welcome sighting of an endangered species.
I wish I could make people understand the power and magic within books. I know I’ve used those words a lot, but they’re so true. There are some who could be reached I think, some never; as with life, truth and consciousness, some are holding on, trying their best, just waiting for that extra help, that lift to shore, whereas others are lost, gone, unable to be reached no matter what you say or do. But those who are still waiting, still holding on, trying to find their way, can be reached.
So after listening to Write Conscious (YouTube, here on Substack), talk about doing and saying nothing about the value of literature, I wanted to speak of my own lifetime passion with books, with reading and writing. I realized what a consuming, massive part of my life it has been, it’s been everything and yet I don’t talk about it that much, no-one around me really cares, there’s no-one to talk books with; it’s been a mostly solitary journey so I have this whole world locked up within me. But when I thought of all it’s meant to me, all my life, all the myriad of connections, the tsunami of writers and books began unravelling in my mind, tumbling forward, the momentum releasing more and more, all the way back from the beginning, when I adored books as a child, being read to before I could even read myself, I recognized the power of storytelling, the spell of writing and reading and why I’ve always loved both.
But that becomes a habit, a feedback loop, when you’ve always had to keep things inside. It takes someone else sometimes to truly make you see it, realize how much is locked away. But also to see you don’t have to keep doing it, in fact, mustn’t.
It took me a long, long time to start sharing my writing, for many reasons, but eventually I started my blog, Outsidersinsides and it became a lifeline for me, it was a place I found great comfort and connection, then later, Substack, which has been harder, but I keep slowly moving. So I drift between the two but it amazes me how little there is about literature and all it’s meant to me. So here we are. A little splurge in praise of books and my love for them and need to champion them more. It’s needed now, as the world becomes ever more hollow, artificial, regulated, homogenized, policed, soulless, the need to stick up for literature is increasingly important. So there may be more to come. As I wrote this, names of books, writers, were jumping into my head, clamouring for attention.
The silent, solitary reader may start to come out and share.