A Letter About Harry Potter
Taken from a Facebook note entry on
22 July 2007 at 6:52
Dear Mom and Aunt Dossie,
It's so strange to feel the flurry of feelings that come with acheiving a goal. I all but punched skies and skipped this morning when I finished Harry Potter, but upon waking, have had this horrible sadness running through me. I suppose that's the price you pay for rushing things, though I couldn't let myself fall asleep with only 100 pages left (this is not giving anything away) and with my best friends in grave danger.
So I finished the book in one day and when it was done, like with any great, rare, and special book, I sat with it pressed against my chest for a long time and stared aimlessly at the wall in front of me not sure what to think because of the unordinary rush of emotion. The only thing I could find myself doing was to take a pen and inscribe the following in the front cover:
"I read this in Italy where it saved me from loneliness. It became, for me, a best friend."
I think the only way to describe the feeling of accomplishment and the loneliness and displacement that is felt after is to say that the exhaustion and the passion attached to such a feat envelopes you whole during moments of rest that you hadn't been allowed before. And then you think: wow, I did it. Now what? For however long it takes to achieve whatever it is that we want, once it's ours, we don't know where to put our energy next. The urgency that we felt only a minute before dissipates. and then what?
I feel as though everyone reading the story, possibly in their beds during the wee hours of the morning, can attest to this; that the world just waved goodbye to Frodo baggins and Sam Gimgee in their gondola, just waved goodbye to Tim Burtin's Big Fish character when the son gently rests his father in the water for the first and last time--we just waved goodbye to some of the greatest fictional characters we have ever come in contact with. And what's so damn hard about it is that we all grew to love and care for them just as much the characters themselves felt for each other.
I think the coolest thing about it all though is that even though I may never read a Harry Potter book for the first time ever again, so many other people will, because fictional characters are given the gift of eternal life. And as some of us wave goodbye, thousands of others are just saying hello.
Chess
I feel like a parent who has just let go of her eldest child. Jesus.
22 July 2007 at 6:52
Dear Mom and Aunt Dossie,
It's so strange to feel the flurry of feelings that come with acheiving a goal. I all but punched skies and skipped this morning when I finished Harry Potter, but upon waking, have had this horrible sadness running through me. I suppose that's the price you pay for rushing things, though I couldn't let myself fall asleep with only 100 pages left (this is not giving anything away) and with my best friends in grave danger.
So I finished the book in one day and when it was done, like with any great, rare, and special book, I sat with it pressed against my chest for a long time and stared aimlessly at the wall in front of me not sure what to think because of the unordinary rush of emotion. The only thing I could find myself doing was to take a pen and inscribe the following in the front cover:
"I read this in Italy where it saved me from loneliness. It became, for me, a best friend."
I think the only way to describe the feeling of accomplishment and the loneliness and displacement that is felt after is to say that the exhaustion and the passion attached to such a feat envelopes you whole during moments of rest that you hadn't been allowed before. And then you think: wow, I did it. Now what? For however long it takes to achieve whatever it is that we want, once it's ours, we don't know where to put our energy next. The urgency that we felt only a minute before dissipates. and then what?
I feel as though everyone reading the story, possibly in their beds during the wee hours of the morning, can attest to this; that the world just waved goodbye to Frodo baggins and Sam Gimgee in their gondola, just waved goodbye to Tim Burtin's Big Fish character when the son gently rests his father in the water for the first and last time--we just waved goodbye to some of the greatest fictional characters we have ever come in contact with. And what's so damn hard about it is that we all grew to love and care for them just as much the characters themselves felt for each other.
I think the coolest thing about it all though is that even though I may never read a Harry Potter book for the first time ever again, so many other people will, because fictional characters are given the gift of eternal life. And as some of us wave goodbye, thousands of others are just saying hello.
Chess
I feel like a parent who has just let go of her eldest child. Jesus.