Before the Readathon
My second ever readathon is beginning today. This time I will be picking up books by Neil Gaiman (a first for me), Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Richard Zenith, and possibly, if I am truly productive, some Shakespeare.
Days like these, I light candles and burn incense. I drink from a teacup. I run my fingers over the budding pothos plant that my sister lovingly gave me for my birthday a few years ago. I read some Rumi.
There is a hope to be wrestled out of the pages of a good book, a firm belief in the destiny that you were born to read that book. This was how I felt the first time I read my children’s edition of The Call of the Wild, my favorite book. Of all the familiar swirl of tumbleweeds patrolling the streets, the birds loping through the sky, nothing felt more beautiful and more natural than Buck’s adventures. I grew up with the tumbleweeds, not the frozen tundra that our hero dog pounded across, but, somehow, The Call of the Wild was home and was where I really belonged. Today, I have three copies: My gorgeous edition, my children’s edition, and my annotated copy.
Even though I won’t be reading it for this readathon, I talk about The Call of the Wild because it is the power of a prevailing theme ghosting from across the pages to haunt your heart. I found something similar in The Masnavi and The Book of Disquiet: A sense of gray.
For myself, gray is more than just my favorite color. It is my very vibration. Gray is the color of the depths of the soul, and I could soliloquize for a long time, but the fact of the matter is, books are color to me, splashing emeralds and frolicking oranges. I love the color and texture of language. Reading a book is swimming in a field of red ochre.
I curated today’s books based on their potential spooky factor — Mexican Gothic and The Graveyard Book — and because of their hopefully inspirational vein — Pessoa: A Biography. As I said above, if I get through the first two on my list, I will dive into my first-ever reading of Othello, which I purchased at my favorite used bookstore.
As I write this, my tea cools on the coffee table, and my cat, Bijou, has situated herself on my lap, nudging her head into my chest the way she does when she is getting comfortable. She has the softest fur of any cat I have ever known. Petting her completes the gray vibration that I hope to achieve for the day. At some point, I will turn on the fireplace. Things are as the should be.
