There is something special about reading a good book. One of my favorite rereads is Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster. I love Jerusha Abbott—I'd like to think that we would be friends forever if I went to her college or lived in her tower.
I dearly love a good adventure novel, where inside I meet a swashbuckler and bellow yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, or delve into tree-sap fiction that rekindles my desire to walk through antique shops and wear cameos on my neck. I love escaping to far off lands where animals talk, machines run rampant, and people mean what they say. The amount of kindle books, hours, and money I have poured through boasts the hundreds. There's two things I detest: ending novels and not being the protagonist. I end a bildungsroman and realize I never went through a spiritual journey, understanding, or awakening, Edna Pontellier and Margaret Hale did. I spiral in sadness. I am an unplugged lamp, a discordant guitar. I feel like I need someone to strike me across the face with a tuning fork every time I finish a novel. As time goes by (sung by Sam from Casablanca), I see the danger of reading books. Being deliberately removed from reality is a razor blade. There is such a danger in reflecting myself in a fictional book. I get disenchanted with the reality I am dealt. Instead of trying to understand and truly listen to the people around me, I bury my nose and sniff the words in a book. The more conflicts, climaxes, and resolutions I read, the less present I become. Perhaps I should just rest. Rest in the place He has drawn me to, rest in the security of His promises and my romantics that make me me, and simply rest. I suppose tomorrow I shall read another Steinbeck, dream bigger, more imaginative dreams, and set my heart toward eternity. This is Jerusha Abbott's take on country living, and my take on reading books: "I can walk over everybody's land, and look at everybody's view, and dabble in everybody's brook; and enjoy it just as much as though I owned the land—and with no taxes to pay!"
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