Wherever you go

Wherever I go, a book is sure to be in my bag. Of course, what else would I do if a friend is running late or when I’ve finished a task ahead of time and I’ve got time to kill? So as expected, even to a trip abroad, a book in my bag there shall be.

My question is, what kind of book do you bring, dear reader?

In my previous travels, I used to bring an unread book but lately, I found that bringing a familiar one is better. In traveling, reality can be a bit exciting than the alternate one, so the new book may not be given justice. Or is that just me?

As of this writing, I am smugly seated in my dresser in an Air BnB in South Korea, but my mind is not far from the book I brought with me which happens to be – surprise, surprise – Pride and Prejudice!

My meagre writing skills just can’t give this book its due praise. I’ll let other writers do that for me. But let me just say that its universal theme just doesn’t get old – it transcends time and culture – that even in a foreign country, I see manifestations of Austen’s sharp observations in people I encounter.

Love, deception, redemption. Who cannot relate to these?

Seeking life in pages

As soon as I closed Barack Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father, I knew right away what I wanted to immerse myself in next. No, it’s not one from my to-be-read pile of eighty-six books (ouch). It’s actually from my pile of comfort books.

Yes, I scrambled back to Pride and Prejudice.

That first line – It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife – alone catapulted me to Hertfordshire where happy endings awaited me. True, there were those misunderstandings along the way, but what’s life without a bit of spice?

So what defines a comfort book?

Along with Pride and Prejudice, some of my comfort books are Persuasion (another Austen, not surprising), Little Women, The Purple Hibiscus, and any Anne Tyler book save for Morgan’s Passing. Now I don’t recall feeling perfectly happy when I first read P and P or any of the aforementioned, for that matter, but many times I found myself reaching out to one of them no matter my mood. Do we turn to these books because we see something familiar in them or is it because we find our dreams actualized in them?

Both, if I may say so myself. Who doesn’t see a bit of themselves in Elizabeth Bennet or dream of a Mr. Darcy to sweep them off their feet? It might be the security that locks me when reading these books or the warmth that fills my entire being when romantic professions are profusely given (You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you) that draws me back. Is real life really that disappointing, one may ask? No, it’s never that. I have this notion that because of life’s unpredictability, our comfort books give us reassurance that in the end, it will be okay.

What are comfort books to you, dear reader?

Stories – what’s life without them?

Thrill ran through my bones as my eyes took in this paragraph:

“… Then they’d offer a story to match or confound mine, a knot to bind our experiences together – a lost father, an adolescent brush with crime, a wandering heart, a moment of simple grace. As time passed, I found that these stories, taken together, had helped me bind my world together, that they gave me the sense of place and purpose I’d been looking for.”

Only after his term as the President of the United States did I discover how prolific a writer Barack Obama is. He reads with ease, but I can’t help but compare Dreams from My Father to a slice of dense chocolate cake. Just when you think you have eaten a lot already, you look down and find that you barely even made a dent to it. That’s how I feel about this book. I get so engrossed with it – to a point that I even forget where I am – but when I look at my progress, I haven’t even gotten to ten pages!

But I digress.

The lines above thrilled me because once again, I found another writer who provided exactly the right words to what I had been feeling yet couldn’t properly convey! It’s exactly these stories that connect us to one another. It’s these stories that bring us closer, that help us shape our empathetic nature and allow us to imagine living other people’s lives.

I believe that as long as we have stories to tell, there will always be someone who’d sit with you, perhaps with a cup of coffee and a bag of pretzels, and drink in all that you’d have to say.

Behind the waterfall

It is a universally accepted truth that reading provides a temporary escape from reality. What a relief it is to be able to slip into the recess behind the waterfall and find a door that leads you to your heart’s desire. In many instances, I, like so many others, have found myself not wanting to leave that magical place. This alternate existence, most of the time, pervades my physical existence. You smile, you listen, you respond to their good mornings, but your soul is still there wandering in that world behind the waterfall.

I believe that at least once in our life, something big happens that lures us out of that world. A “welcome to the real world” kind of thing that’s wholly different for everyone. And when this happens, you get so frightened by it that you come scurrying back to that door, only to find that you have locked yourself out. You pound on the door, determined to get back in and when it finally opens, you find that nothing is the same anymore.

Trees have been uprooted. Flowers have wilted. Your little cottage in the middle of the forest has been blown away by the big bad wolf.

What do you do?

Read more books. Meet new literary heroes. Explore new lands. Experience new emotions. Bit by bit, no matter how long it would take, that world behind the waterfall would right itself again.

P.S. On a very different note, the first sentence of this post greatly reminded me of this: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.“

Stepping outside the door

Reading our writings of yesteryear is something we find ourselves doing once in a while. As honest as good writing goes, this experience is like meeting an old friend you didn’t know you missed. However, I have found myself, in more times than once, at a loss at some of the words I had used. I would look at a word, examine it as you would a coin, and end up wondering how I had happened to know it. I would scour my memory for any traces of its definition, analyze its etymology, and still emerge empty handed. How could this happen?

For someone whose mother language isn’t English, learning new words can be tough. It is even tougher to retain them. So is finding opportunities to use them, unless having arguments with oneself counts as a valid opportunity. In a workplace that doesn’t promote creative usage of words, how does one manage to hold on to a vocabulary that may never see daylight again?

Words make me happy.

According to Funk and Lewis’ 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary, there are two kinds of vocabulary – recognition vocabulary and functional vocabulary. How does one improve one’s functional vocabulary when the workplace only paradoxically encourages one to think outside the box? I have come to realize, however, that putting the blame on existing uncontrollable conditions will not get me anywhere. And so I have resolved to resurrect my old habit of learning one new word a day albeit with a few changes. Looking at my state now, I deeply regret discontinuing it in the first place. Imagine how wider my horizons would be had I been diligent enough to relentlessly pursue such a vital habit. So, dear reader, if you are entertaining thoughts of abandoning your one-new-word-a-day habit, take it from me, brush those thoughts away. You will only regret it.

Allow me to end my rant with this magical portrayal of words from The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk.

“Yet everything is silent: there is no one here. In fairy tales, such places are the deepest emanations of magic: the castle in its forest of thorns, the mountain room unlocked by a keyhole in the ice, the lake with its pleasure boats that lies beneath the floorboards. It is in the elision of the human hand that the magic expresses itself. A fire burns with no one to stoke it; a meal stands hot on the table in an empty house.”

It is an exhilarating feeling to be able to express your thoughts eloquently.