Thoughts Untitled

I love to run my fingers across the covers of a book. To hold it in both hands, like a lover. I stand before my bookcase. It too is a beautiful thing; a stained pine cabinet built in from floor to ceiling and stretching across 16ft of floor boards. The sun spills in across the north facing balcony, through the sliding doors, and stretches its warm fingers towards the books and vinyl records. Like me, the sunlight yearns to behold these sensual creatures. I reach out to the Genuine Works of Hippocrates and inch it gently toward me. First running my left hand along its spine, I regard its firm leather hardcover and its engraved gold text and artwork. I recall the day I found her, and the place. My wife and I were celebrating our first wedding anniversary, and I had taken my wife to Berrima for a 4 day mystery retreat. I had heard about the rare book department at Berkelouw Books in Berrima, and I felt rather clever at having made the connection between our paper anniversary and a secluded book store. The assistant held the solid tome with due respect as she checked it through the register, and advised me to oil her lightly every now and then to maintain the quality.

Sliding her all the way out now, I cradle her in my left palm as I caress the front cover, switch her to my right palm, and open her gently. The scent wafts out from the pages and intoxicates me. There is no equivalent descriptor of the scent of a loved book. If you have not experienced it, you have neither lived a full life, nor can you imagine it. Aristotle held that friends are necessary for the good life. In the absence of a friend, I can attest that a book will serve you very well indeed.

I choose a couple of pages randomly and read them carefully; closely. Closing her gently again I raise her to my face and take one final inhalation before returning it to its place. This brings me to the source of my discontent. If time and circumstance would only permit me two wishes, they would be an eternity with my wife and children, and the equivalent eternity to read and write. That may seem like four wishes, although the granter of wishes I trust would not be so pedantic.

Last year I purchased three moleskin journals. My intention is obviously to write something, and yet they remain empty. Why is this the case? First and foremost the problem is this. I respect the quality of the journals so highly that I am frightened to spoil them with my writing. I insist upon writing fluently, neatly and coherently. I want to get to the end of the journal and have before me a masterpiece that requires no editing; a work of art that contains no mistakes. The journal to me is like a canvas. But unlike the canvas it can’t be painted over. All that is possible with the journal is to tear out the offending page and start again. Clearly, tearing pages out here and there is simply not an option.

So, another day passes. The crickets busily rub their legs together in search of a mate, I sit by the light of the monitor, and my desire to honor the hand-written word suffocates beneath my ideals.