Reading as therapy. Which reminded me of something.
Months ago, a professor in giving advice to a student applying to PhD programs near me advised her not to put something pedestrian in her application essay like she wants to go to grad school because she likes reading. And I've let that ruminate for a while now.... because you see, I put that I love reading in my essay.
Did this professor read my essay? Did others think me boring for the statement? Because I meant it in no germane context.
I think we take reading for granted far too often forgetting the insanity of scribbled black marks becoming... Yes, becoming.
We forget how complex the manner of inscribing language which we think we know but which - like driving over certain speeds or the ocean after you've reached a certain distance from shore - is truly not within our control. We forget to consider that how we use what we say in specific ways to achieve certain ends, and how when written down in what is allegedly a stable form, there is still that false bottom hat where the rabbit is hiding. We forget that all too often what we throw out does not bounce the way we thought it would, and challenges our ability to clean up mess with more mess - far riskier lobs. Language, reading, is playing tennis on the unpredictable clay courts of the French Open. Reading is trusting that when the man in the trick jacket - the author in her desk chair - says he will Cut You In Half for the pleasure of the audience, and ultimately himself, that he is in fact quite skilled at his craft. You hope that you will end up dazzled, charmed, bewildered, but not truly physically injured - unable to put yourself back together again.
Reading is, we must consider reading as, an act of pure magic.
Or how often do we forget the quantum physics of reading, how on the subparagraph level, under careful observation, one sentence can cripple the experiment. How the frequency of reading can increase understanding or pervert the course of connection. In reading, what we write down, what other perceive, what time does to the slant of a phrase, to the inflection on a word, to the very internal stability and length of time that text will last, are all unstable elements warring with each other, with the page itself, in a fight for dominance. What learning and information do to how language flows through us, flows through our mouths, through the synaptic connections we barely understand, and into air that is different every single moment, and over the tricky substance of time's flow... these my friends, are what we consistently forget.
Reading as a fundamental state of altered consciousness.
So when I say that I love reading in my essay, I make no ho hum space filler. What I wanted, tried to convey was the deeply spiritual connection I have to the written word. How a good book is my temple and there is serenity, salvation within. How the right series of words, or the right individual word, can freeze me in time, literally contradict the laws of this universe, to allow me my own bubble of perfect understanding, a unity that is ephemeral but whose impact is my life. That so many books have healed me - usually baptisms by fire, truth is not sweet - and filled spaces I did not know were there until I lifted the book and felt at ease.
Reading as the serene experience of glancing into a dark, still pond of water, of unknown depth, from the comfort of a sturdy boat, hand trailing the water, summer skies full of sun. The summer breeze is not strong enough to ruffle pages to distraction/frustration of course.
I do not besmirch the oral tradition from which I have most certainly sprung. But there is something to the creamy, slippery texture of the page, the minuscule dimples, the uneven quality of most paper. The places where the printer's ink failed, left off half of a word, top or side, or maybe just the dot on an i, reminding you that each book is in fact individual, and must be made page by individual page - "one million in print" be damned!
There is a sensation that sinks into a book you've had a long, long time, like it has absorbed some of you into the crinkled/wrinkled edges, brown from turning pages. A profound connection in the tea stains, and corners worn soft - so often used to absentmindedly clean under fingernails. Something within the gesture of filling hundreds of pages with the attempt to tell a story, share a bit of consciousness - however faulty the execution may/might end up - and in your own attempt, in reading, to understand that story and, by extension, the impulse to inscribe it in just this way. There is fascination in language/books' execution, ingestion, processing, integration...
These, yes these are the things which we must: remember, savor, repeat.
