reading

I very much enjoy reading. This statement in and of itself seems pretty lame and mundane. I used to put it down on school assignments as one of my interests and every time I would put it down, I would seriously consider erasing it from the page. It was sending the wrong kind of message. I couldn't quite stand behind the statement, "I love reading." It seemed rather empty. It is not really the reading I enjoy. Reading can actually be quite blah. In fact, right now, for my classes, most reading I do is blah and takes the joy of reading and throws it somewhere far, far away where my heart can't reach it. I have become the kind of reader I am not proud of. I power browse through giant portions of text, attempting to glean the topic sentence of each paragraph and move on. There is no pleasure here, "oh, oh, keep moving faeeza you are dawdling, there is no time for thought here, come on there are 6,990 more pages to go, they are bound to be even more cantankerous and boring, move on move on! for the love of God move on!" Entire plots get dissolved in my need for speed. College has taught me this trick. I'm hoping to undo it immediately.

I think what I like best about the act of reading is being completely enraptured in a universe constructed of words. Words that are put together in ways I cannot dream of and words that fly around engaged in combat with each other. I like dwelling on passages that I find resonant within me. A truly good book usually utters answers to questions I never even knew I had. I find it incredibly comforting to know that someone out there knew how to ask.

Words often fail me and fall when I mean for them to soar. I imagine that words will be exactly what I need to fix a problem. I imagine my words can mend wounds. But they don't always do that. In a book, they are always heroes, even if in real life they cannot be.