Day
Eighty-Six: Getting Lost
I’ve been
searching for the perfect book for my vacation, because for some reason I find
it important to read something mindless while relaxing because it is just
easier for me. I’ve got a huge list of
books that I already need to read, but those don’t include very many romance
novels, and I think my life has been void of sappy romance long enough!
When we
went to Costa Rica I read One Day and really enjoyed it! But it was a little long and on audiobook
discs, which means I had to lug around twenty discs with me to the pool as well
as a discman. I don’t know how many of
you still have one of those, but it definitely racks up the pounds in the
carry-on bag on a flight! This time I’m
purchasing a book or two on audible.com, which means they get uploaded to my
ipod and that’s it. Done-zo. I want to stay away from the classics I
think and just focus on the sappier the better.
I just want mindlessness.
I suppose
this could be achieved through meditation, but during my summer break I
practise my own yoga and especially when I’m at the beach or on vacation in
general I do my yoga outside, and it’s more of a re-charging instead of a
relaxing/meditative, I need complete quiet and still for that during
vacations. I also love to read,
anything. I miss reading physical
newspapers the most, but not being able to hold a book and flip the pages is
depressing. I don’t think anyone knows
how that feels, what little things I used to take for granted.
I think my
whole diagnosis has changed my relationship with books and reading in
general. I wrote a column for the local
bookstore last year about “Reading with my Ears,” which is all fine and dandy
until…well, the relationship of reading is lost. There’s no physical contact with the letters
anymore, there’s no intimacy with the pages of a book, the physicality of
hiding it on your bedside table, because it is either too chunky, too hidden in
an mp3 file, or nonexistent. If I could
choose one thing, my ideal research topic for a graduate program or any other
thing, it would be to understand the relationship humans have with literature.
Why do I
miss holding that book in my hand so much?
Why do I crave a foot long newspaper with the loose inked letters and
the acidic smell? Why is it that a lot
of blind people neglect certain aspects of reading and language culture? Why do I feel so isolated in libraries
now?
It’s
actually really interesting, ever since I started university with the English degree
and my blindness I have searched for used books for my novels. I think it’s something along my understanding
that if someone had loved it, and used it passionately before me, then I wouldn’t
feel so bad not reading it. How upset I
am that I neglect my books now, how my poor Harry Potter series sits alone on
the shelf, or my favourites from when I was younger. It’s not that I don’t love
new books, because that new book smell and just the feeling of the pages
excites me, it’s that dorky English major popping out for you. But it’s different now. I feel bad that I can’t read that book, that
it sits on my shelf and doesn’t get opened.
If you’re ever looking for a fantastic book to borrow I’d love to loan
out mine, I wish I could love them more.
See? Isn’t this just an awkward relationship altogether? Why did I stick with the English major? I don’t feel the same about literature
anymore, and I have a drastically different understanding of story and
storytelling now. I have a new
appreciation for poetry and the conciseness of short prose (holla
blogspot!). Will bookstores follow in
the doom and gloom that the record stores are experiencing now in the looming
technological culture we live in today?
Or will English majors live on into the future to talk intimately about
revolutions in enclosed seminar classrooms and then go home to write blogs
alone?
Is
literature doomed? Or am I just cynical
because I can’t pick up a novel and read it to myself? These questions will be left unanswered
here. I wish I could learn to love
reading again, but as for now….. I can’t
believe I’m admitting this, but it is just not pleasurable anymore. It breaks my heart. Maybe my studies should continue on to search
for a new way to enjoy literature, or maybe that’s been my lifelong study until
this moment and beyond anyway.
x
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