I love the period after you finish a book and nothing taints it in your mind. All that exists is a conversation between the text and your brain. There's no livid rants from goodreads pointing out everything that's wrong, no tumblr fan art telling you what all the scenes and characters look like, no jstor articles sucking all the beauty out by analyzing the author's unresolved daddy issues hovering between the lines. It's a brief moment, between when my eyes fall off the last page and covers of the book make a satisfying sound as they smack back together and when I tell my friend I read it or log on to the internet that everything is perfect in that book's little world.
I love the fleeting but endlessly breathtaking moments when a small, unspoken piece of your life is represented on the page, born of somebody else's brain a million miles or years away, but they've captured a part of you that you irrationally thought was only yours. I read the sentence, pause for a moment while it sinks in. I try to read the next lines but those few just capture my brain, which abandons my eyes as they scan mechanically down the page all alone. I can't keep reading until I greedily write the quote in my little yellow notebook, hoping as the words flow from the pen back up into my arm and into my head that a little piece of that greatness is in me, just for that fleeting moment. We're connected.
I love the way books look all lined up on a shelf. They are so patient, standing at attention, proudly bearing their titles. They remind me of houses all quiet in a subdivision at night. They're still and unobtrusive on the outside, neat and tidy in a row. But you can see a hint of activity through the windows, a tv flashing, kids running by, signs of life. But you can't really know what complex reality stirs on the inside unless you go up and knock on the door. You pass by a hundred houses easy in a day, never knowing what you're missing inside each one.
These things can never be taken away from me, no matter what I study, no matter what I do for a living. I love books, and I always will, and I always can. They aren't going anywhere. I can always read. I need to hang on to that, remember that. All the times I've spent up all night reading, all the times I've retreated in a book when I'm upset or sad or nervous, all the time I've spent puzzling out character motivations, envisioning settings, and existing in fictional worlds. Even all the time I spent arguing about hypothetical situations in hopes of shedding a bit of light on the tiniest bits of humanity. None of it is in vain because it's all mine.
