Borges

I’ve come back to reading. It has caused real grief for the years of not doing so, a mourning for the books I let slip away in deference to the great god Distraction.

Some reading experiences are so profound, they stand on that grief until sleep won’t come and the banalities of a typical day are like noon sun on raw skin. To describe it in a more positive way, some human deeds are so beautiful and sublime that tears are the proper response. An experience of wonderment that exposes our frailties but also forgives them.

The grace of the human body as it triumphs over gravity. The artist who sees what we cannot, but provides us with a glimpse. The mathematics which ease our physical existence but also allow an infinite number of perfect melodies to reach our ears.

I think reading will save me in the end. Not because I will disappear into these books, but because they will remind me of human joy.

I was fortunate to have such an experience this week because I read Jorge Luis Borges’ Fictions. Profoundly imaginative stories yes, but what was done with, done to…words…

An instance, a moment, of what we all want.