Reading is a process of comfort for me. It has been so when I was in college, and felt confident in all I learned; in high school, when I felt lost and alone; and as a child when I didn’t know how to make friends and play with them.
It was how I first learned to ignore my unpleasant surroundings and to drown myself in another world. It is seldom important where I am physically, as long as I had a book in my hand. Initially, my parents bought me books, then it was tattered library books and then e-books on my deep 2009 PC.
When my school teachers told me to do more “outdoor activities” rather than sit in the classroom and read during breaks, I took to sitting by a neem tree in the school playground to enjoy my book. This built a haven of quiet surroundings: seclusion from peers in the playground, cool breeze from the tree, and the warm late morning glimmer filtered through the trees to make patterns on my pages. The unpleasantness of the world was gone. This feeling is forever ingrained in my skin, eyes, and ears.
Even today as I find myself in a natural space, I feel no need to detach myself from my physical environment. Ears free from traffic noises, eyes forgetting the itch of white light. Just me, the pages in the breeze, and this dappling light. I can take a moment to put the book down and let the warmth tint my eyelids red.
As I find myself at the park for the third weekend this month, trying to soak up this feeling to last me through the week-long drudgery of corporate apathy, I replace my anxiety for hope. One loss followed by another, and every morning the toil of waking up to a new day, all fade away under the twilight. My overwhelmed heart beats steady. There is no longer a race to complete another 5% of my ebook nor a need to be seen reading.
The comfort of reading can hardly be trumped by another for me. No arms warm enough, no bed so welcoming as the worn pages of a book well read. And yet, this haven beckons me to put the book away, to lay and watch the birds sing for nobody. Beckons me, even, to erase every preoccupation to focus, gently, on myself. An impact-proofed stage to allow anger and hurt, processing and healing to play out their parts.
Always amazing to read what you write, Miss Chandra! Continue to write just as well as you continue to read. :)