My Less Than Stellar Relationship with Books
[This entry was prompted when I made friends with
ajas874 because of our baaad reading habits]
One of my bad habits - aside from smoking and consuming too much coffee - is reading a book and losing wind as I near the end. Meaning, I stop a chapter or two away from the ending. The last book that met such fate in my hands was The Best Little Boy in Town by John Reid. It's an account of growing up gay. Kinda' like a gay version of Catcher in the Rye; funnier though and less angsty.
But this bad habit is better than my other bad reading habit - buying a book and not reading it. That tragedy befell Angela's Ashes. It remains on my bedside table, nightly trying to get my attention. It used to excitedly do so, brimming with anticipation the moment my fingers would brush against its cover and caress its pages, one after the other, as my eyes devour its words, meaning and intent.
After a week, Angela's Ashes' stares had become confused, bewildered. I had bought it, hadn't I? From the mounds of books in the store, I chose it. I shelled hard-earned precious money to acquire it. I excitedly took it out of its wrapping and smiled as I see it then - no longer a commodity for sale but a valued property. So why - the book wondered - was I giving it a mere once over every night as I lie down on my bed.
A month had passed and its stares had become desperate. If only its words had voice, it would have asked me, “Why?” If only its meaning had arms and hands, it would have reached out to me and compel me to touch it. If only its intent had lips, it would have pressed itself against mine and allow me to explore its depth. But it is a mere book and could only wait for me to make the move.
Now, the book no longer stares. It merely gives me cursory glances, resigned at the thought that I am a worthless possesor of its existence.
It does not know, of course, it being an inaminate object, that I value it. I would not have spent hours skimming through book after book to find it. I would not acquired it had I not known how it would make me be a part of some world I've never known existed. It is just that I am, currently, at my shallowest. My heart and my mind - preoccupied with the mundane albeit necessary - would not be able to give the proper attention it deserves. It does not know that I keep it on my bedside table so every night I'd be reminded that there would come a day my hands would securely clasp it around my fingers and fondle its pages. That one day my eyes would gleam as it excitedly rove from one word to another. And that my mind and my heart would wholly devour its very essence, transporting me to heights and depths of a world I never knew existed. And when finally, after the book and I reach completion - with a smile, perhaps, or a tear, or both - we would have reached the perfect consummation.
And Angela's Ashes would know of my love.