Tell me a story…

I sometimes wonder why people love to read and/or write. I don’t buy that some people JUST ARE a reader or writer. Sure, natural inclination, genetics, conditioning and all that psychology and sociology factor in, but I think it’s so much simpler. I think people love to read or write because of moments that set them free.

When my brother and I were kids, we’d beg and plead for my parents to read us a story before we’d crash out for the night. We’d run down the hallway in our jammies and catapult onto their big bed, cozying together for storytime. Sometimes we’d be armed with a book, and sometimes my Dad would make something up on the spot. When we got older we’d talk about politics, religion or family - all on that big, safe bed, under the umbrella of “storytime.”

Looking back, I don’t remember much about the specifics of these nights, as numerous as the pages we flipped. But I’ll never forget the feeling – like anything was possible, the world was vast and life unending.

***

As usual, I’m pawing through about 4 books right now, absolutely sure I won’t finish all of them. Among them: a biography on Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement; Nature and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson; The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard; and a book that’s reawakening my love of fiction, The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I picked up Dostoevsky after reading about the impact Russian writers had on Dorothy Day. When she was a child growing up in Chicago, her strict father wouldn’t allow her to leave the house without supervision. As a result, she spent most of her time shut in her family’s library, enraptured by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, learning about the plight of men enslaved in poverty. Day found identity and freedom in their words about a land half a world away.

When I crack the spine of this book, I feel like I’m lying on my parent’s bed again. Like life is unstoppable, vast and unending. I feel like I’m connected to this legendary woman. My eyes pass over the same words that enraptured her. My mind processes the same though changed her worldview. Through space and time and literature, I feel that I know her.

And that sets me free.

Today's Soundtrack: Magic in the Air - Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast