On reading to mend the soul
Beirut, November 8, 2017
***
In more ways than one, books have saved me. Books, tea, music, the belief that time is expandable, that it is plentiful, that it is not too late for things that have not yet happened to happen. A change is gonna come, Otis Redding tells me. Well, 'tis, 'tis.
For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with anxiety, I think. Nobody ever made an official diagnosis, but I know how real this has been in my life. Stemming from self-doubt, no doubt, I've had long nights ridden with endless crying, wondering why nothing I ever do feels right, wondering how I could find this state of contentment, wishing this suffering would end, wishing I did not have to wake up the next day, wishing I did not have to exist around some (or all) people, feeling the walls around me close in, and the air completely escape my lungs; loathing my clothes, the sound of my voice, the voices inside my head that have been repeating the same tune over and over again; obsessing over well-intentioned actions which always ended badly; the restlessness, the restlessness, the restlessness.
There are days when even reading could not help.
But then, there are days when reading did help. Not in the way the wave of a magic wand abruptly changes a situation. But in the way a slow and patient appreciation of the words happens, one page after the next, till the story has spread its web around the walls and the corners of your imagination. Till every single event has been explored, every character's journey fulfilled (or not fulfilled, not always). An acceptance that stories are sometimes arduous, but that the final destination makes the journey worthwhile. (Gosh, the cheesiest, most ad-like thing I've ever written on here.) Impatient people, people who give up on books too soon, people who cannot wait for a rose to open, or for a winter to pass are well and truly the biggest losers; their life as real and as hurried as a video game. Jumping from one book onto the next, from one girl onto the next, a superficial life that scratches the surface without ever venturing into the depths, where true magic lay.
Okay, I've gone off on a tangent. Maybe I'm wrong. I could keep going but I won't.
Books.
Let's start.
I read Kafka on the Shore in January of 2015, between Beirut and Glasgow. This is the part where I was unable to be transported anywhere whilst reading: I read some of it on the plane from London to Glasgow, where I got sat on one side next to an unpleasant and creepy British man of Pakistani origins, with a dubious choice of stark white sneakers, and who ordered one too many vodka cokes, and tried to convince me to split a taxi with him, and on the other side, next to a white abaya-clad muslim man with a fuzzy beard who gave me (sadly for this man who turned out to be not only a very sweet British teacher living in Saudi Arabia, but also acquainted with vodka coke; "don't listen to him, he's an idiot," he told me about the other guy) slightly radical vibes and the fear that we may not make it alive out of this plane. These distractions made it so very difficult for me to feel detached from my surrounding whilst reading.
Gosh, so many tangents.
It was back in the calm of my dorm room, with dim lights, warmth, solitude that I completed Kafka on the Shore. As the words washed on my shore, the uncomfortable bed I slept on was no longer itself. I was far, far away from everything. From the loud footsteps in the corridor, the commotion of drunk students outside, the sound of train passing by, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. I stood facing the waves, head, hair and dress billowing in the wind. I was the one being painted. A salt-laden wind carried the anxiety and the fears away as I dwelled in the surreal, instilling placidity. Of course, like most Murakami stories, there was weird sex and talking cats and a precocious (heavily muscled) child. Many moments in this book were not poetry at all; instead, they made my stomach churn and I nearly gave up on the book. But I didn't. And disliking parts of a book is good: it means that the story made you feel things. How literary of me to write "feel things." But it's true. I read Kafka on the Shore during a year that felt altogether surreal. Perhaps it's not just the book. It's you and the book. Where you are, how you are feeling. Reading a book is a very personal experience, and that's so beautiful it gives me goosebumps as I write it. I've got a strong recollection of that night, the night I stood on the shore, me, real, in that painting, hung on that wall, described in the book I was reading on the bed. Dim lights, warmth, brine, wind, and calm. The lines blur. A fleeting moment of safety but a moment nonetheless. That's how I remember Kafka on the Shore. And I think that this memory, pulled back from the past, gives me now the sense of healing that I felt whilst reading the last pages.
I read The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavander in December of 2015. It was around that time that I first developed my online profile, dreamily thinking love online came easy. A week after finishing this book, I would meet pig boy. With Ava Lavander, things were different. Glasgow had come to an end, only to become a hazy daydream, and after spending a few days in Newfoundland and Montreal (which I was visiting for the first time,) and then a few days in Paris, I was back in Beirut. Brutally thrown back into the smog, the exhaust, the honking of the cars, returning back as if I had never left. As if nothing had ever changed. With Ava Lavander, it was trees, this time. Trees, tall trees, the cloudy skies of the Pacific Northwest. Christmastime and I do not celebrate Christmas but enthusiastically embrace the the spirit. And the cold, rainy greyness of North America, so unlike a snowy New York, or Boston, evoked Christmas; not the cliche kind, but the kind that reminded me of a grey and rainy Glasgow Christmas market, a fresh memory. Glasgow; luminous despite the clouds, magical and warm despite the rain, Glasgow as home. The temporary kind. I've got such nostalgia for a Glasgow that no longer exists. But anyway. Ava Lavander, bakery, trees, fog, bird wings, magical surrealism, rediscovering Beirut in the wintertime, learning to send long messages to boys. Safety, once more, in a space I could only discover in my imagination, and henceforth dream about materialising in. Teenage love, the one I've never had, but one I could vicariously experience. Love and trees and fog and rain and bread and cake. Interchangeable. Another kind of warmth. I hid in this book for a while, and emerged even more a dreamer than I had been before. Reconciling between reality (Beirut), and feeling pulled, by an inextricable force back into the pages, in between the trees, under the rain. I repeat myself. And for a moment, being back in Beirut would feel okay, temporary. I was Ava, and, with wings I could not just summon yet, I would soon be able to fly back to my trees. It felt so close. So close.
Of course, Beirut did not end up being temporary. And, did I actually write about reading that mends the soul? I don't think I did. No matter, let us carry on being rebels and write nonsense.
Things are good.
Things are good. Peaceful.
For the past two weeks, I have been weakened by something insubstantial and insignificant. Forgot to see the big picture, to change my perspective and understand how wrong it was to think about someone who mattered so little for such a long while.
I am back now, though. Completely healed? no. Humiliated? yes; inevitable, when you like someone more than they like you. Sad? a little bit; it hasn't been easy, collecting rejection after rejection. Angry? sometimes; it waxes and wanes, like the seasons. I can't explain the intensity of what I felt these past few weeks, but I am no longer looking to deny it. It took me a few more days than expected to understand the message, but when it sunk in, there was nothing I could do to change how I acted or what I said, or how I felt. This just was. As meaningless and forgettable as I have been to the other person, my feelings were real, they were hopeful, and I won't punish myself for having had them.
Now: hopeful? yes; a hundred times yes, like that moment Jane Bennet (Rosamund Pike) tells Mr. Bingley she accepts his marriage proposal.
I have begun playing Christmas music, and am currently reading four books at once (bad! evil of all evils!) - planning on finishing them all in 2049, bien obviously.
In april of last year, I started writing this post, which I titled On reading to mend the soul, and which I never finished. I can't remember why. The beginning to it is funny (in the way self-absorbed and self-loving people like myself chuckle at their own niche attempts at humour.) Here it is:
(From April 26, unpublished.)
(From April 26, unpublished.)
I have read countless, *countless* articles that define how reading cures from whatever ails the soul. But I will not be fazed by the plethora of words and thoughts that have been written or discussed around the subject. And I will write this with a strong will and all the confidence that I have. (Which can currently be equated to the volume of water in the 330mL bottle by my side. Which is not much, but here is hoping the water gains volume and breaks the bottle. Without actually breaking the bottle because I am not keen on picking up shattered pieces of glass just now. And getting hurt in the process. But ANYWAY.)
***
In more ways than one, books have saved me. Books, tea, music, the belief that time is expandable, that it is plentiful, that it is not too late for things that have not yet happened to happen. A change is gonna come, Otis Redding tells me. Well, 'tis, 'tis.
For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with anxiety, I think. Nobody ever made an official diagnosis, but I know how real this has been in my life. Stemming from self-doubt, no doubt, I've had long nights ridden with endless crying, wondering why nothing I ever do feels right, wondering how I could find this state of contentment, wishing this suffering would end, wishing I did not have to wake up the next day, wishing I did not have to exist around some (or all) people, feeling the walls around me close in, and the air completely escape my lungs; loathing my clothes, the sound of my voice, the voices inside my head that have been repeating the same tune over and over again; obsessing over well-intentioned actions which always ended badly; the restlessness, the restlessness, the restlessness.
There are days when even reading could not help.
But then, there are days when reading did help. Not in the way the wave of a magic wand abruptly changes a situation. But in the way a slow and patient appreciation of the words happens, one page after the next, till the story has spread its web around the walls and the corners of your imagination. Till every single event has been explored, every character's journey fulfilled (or not fulfilled, not always). An acceptance that stories are sometimes arduous, but that the final destination makes the journey worthwhile. (Gosh, the cheesiest, most ad-like thing I've ever written on here.) Impatient people, people who give up on books too soon, people who cannot wait for a rose to open, or for a winter to pass are well and truly the biggest losers; their life as real and as hurried as a video game. Jumping from one book onto the next, from one girl onto the next, a superficial life that scratches the surface without ever venturing into the depths, where true magic lay.
Okay, I've gone off on a tangent. Maybe I'm wrong. I could keep going but I won't.
Books.
Let's start.
I read Kafka on the Shore in January of 2015, between Beirut and Glasgow. This is the part where I was unable to be transported anywhere whilst reading: I read some of it on the plane from London to Glasgow, where I got sat on one side next to an unpleasant and creepy British man of Pakistani origins, with a dubious choice of stark white sneakers, and who ordered one too many vodka cokes, and tried to convince me to split a taxi with him, and on the other side, next to a white abaya-clad muslim man with a fuzzy beard who gave me (sadly for this man who turned out to be not only a very sweet British teacher living in Saudi Arabia, but also acquainted with vodka coke; "don't listen to him, he's an idiot," he told me about the other guy) slightly radical vibes and the fear that we may not make it alive out of this plane. These distractions made it so very difficult for me to feel detached from my surrounding whilst reading.
Gosh, so many tangents.
It was back in the calm of my dorm room, with dim lights, warmth, solitude that I completed Kafka on the Shore. As the words washed on my shore, the uncomfortable bed I slept on was no longer itself. I was far, far away from everything. From the loud footsteps in the corridor, the commotion of drunk students outside, the sound of train passing by, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. I stood facing the waves, head, hair and dress billowing in the wind. I was the one being painted. A salt-laden wind carried the anxiety and the fears away as I dwelled in the surreal, instilling placidity. Of course, like most Murakami stories, there was weird sex and talking cats and a precocious (heavily muscled) child. Many moments in this book were not poetry at all; instead, they made my stomach churn and I nearly gave up on the book. But I didn't. And disliking parts of a book is good: it means that the story made you feel things. How literary of me to write "feel things." But it's true. I read Kafka on the Shore during a year that felt altogether surreal. Perhaps it's not just the book. It's you and the book. Where you are, how you are feeling. Reading a book is a very personal experience, and that's so beautiful it gives me goosebumps as I write it. I've got a strong recollection of that night, the night I stood on the shore, me, real, in that painting, hung on that wall, described in the book I was reading on the bed. Dim lights, warmth, brine, wind, and calm. The lines blur. A fleeting moment of safety but a moment nonetheless. That's how I remember Kafka on the Shore. And I think that this memory, pulled back from the past, gives me now the sense of healing that I felt whilst reading the last pages.
I read The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavander in December of 2015. It was around that time that I first developed my online profile, dreamily thinking love online came easy. A week after finishing this book, I would meet pig boy. With Ava Lavander, things were different. Glasgow had come to an end, only to become a hazy daydream, and after spending a few days in Newfoundland and Montreal (which I was visiting for the first time,) and then a few days in Paris, I was back in Beirut. Brutally thrown back into the smog, the exhaust, the honking of the cars, returning back as if I had never left. As if nothing had ever changed. With Ava Lavander, it was trees, this time. Trees, tall trees, the cloudy skies of the Pacific Northwest. Christmastime and I do not celebrate Christmas but enthusiastically embrace the the spirit. And the cold, rainy greyness of North America, so unlike a snowy New York, or Boston, evoked Christmas; not the cliche kind, but the kind that reminded me of a grey and rainy Glasgow Christmas market, a fresh memory. Glasgow; luminous despite the clouds, magical and warm despite the rain, Glasgow as home. The temporary kind. I've got such nostalgia for a Glasgow that no longer exists. But anyway. Ava Lavander, bakery, trees, fog, bird wings, magical surrealism, rediscovering Beirut in the wintertime, learning to send long messages to boys. Safety, once more, in a space I could only discover in my imagination, and henceforth dream about materialising in. Teenage love, the one I've never had, but one I could vicariously experience. Love and trees and fog and rain and bread and cake. Interchangeable. Another kind of warmth. I hid in this book for a while, and emerged even more a dreamer than I had been before. Reconciling between reality (Beirut), and feeling pulled, by an inextricable force back into the pages, in between the trees, under the rain. I repeat myself. And for a moment, being back in Beirut would feel okay, temporary. I was Ava, and, with wings I could not just summon yet, I would soon be able to fly back to my trees. It felt so close. So close.
Of course, Beirut did not end up being temporary. And, did I actually write about reading that mends the soul? I don't think I did. No matter, let us carry on being rebels and write nonsense.
Things are good.
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