She didn’t know what she could write. She just knew that she had to. Not writing at various periods in her life meant that something was seriously wrong. Not wrong as in things were difficult; after all, things usually were difficult. But something was wrong with her. Because when she wrote she coped, she functioned as the more or less best version of herself–the good and the bad all mixed together but with the good predominating the majority of the time.
But when she didn’t write bad things happened. Not so much to her–usually what drove her to the quiet desperation in which she sought solace in anything other than the written word, oddly enough, was the bad things for which she was ill-prepared, to cope with–but in her. She ceased to be herself, a person whose most cherished moments in life featured a preponderance of books in one form or another, often reliving certain sensations brought by her childhood or adult favorites over and over, so that they became as real as real life. After all, it was real–her love of books and her need to surround herself with their assorted treasures, be they profound stories or pertinent information on topics of interest.
And it was her life–or at least an important part of it anyway. Just how much a part of it even she might not ever fully realize without the very physical presence of the growing collection of volumes that sprawled throughout her home…
January 2011
Be You Very Well 