A Snippet of My Brain: My thoughts on Books, Binge Reading, and Basic Beezy Book Quotes

I have a habit. Would I go so far to say an addiction? Maybe. My habit is something that I wish I could curb, yet somehow, I hope it stays with me into old adulthood (if the stage we are in now is called young adult hood, is that what older than young adult is called? When does that even start anyway?)

Books: For anyone who really knows me you know that I can not live without books. I love them. All this passion that I feel towards the written word channels itself into an irrational rage toward the Kindle no matter how convenient they have become. The feelings that I have toward physical books could be considered unhealthy. The way I like to carry them with me wherever I go. The fantasies I have about nooks in my future home, or the walls of books I want to cover my office even if I don't need an office. The fact that in my free time this summer I made a bucket list of all of the libraries in the world that I MUST see before I die. There's something about standing in a room full of books that makes you feel smaller. Each book holds something new to learn, something that someone else seems to think they know better than you. I mean, they knew enough of said thing to write it down but I love that it's our job to decide if what they know is really as much as they say it is. Books can be overwhelming. Each book is different and requires an effort. You have to open it. You have to choose it. You have to take it down from among the home that it rests on and decide that it's worth your time.  Each book is a mystery for you to unfold and only YOU can press out the folds the way that you will. Yet, somehow, even if you only read a page, a preface, or a summary (or the last sentence -__-), you will always leave a room full of books feeling smarter than you are because at the very least you took the first step toward knowledge. 

I love the smell of books. I love to feel each page as it turns both literally in my hands, and figuratively in my head. I love the crisp turn of each first page and satisfying, deep breath I finally get to take when I close the back cover. I love the dedication pages of books. You know, that huge blank page with the small script on the top? Yeah that one. Sometimes there is a poem or a quote or a series of words or letters that make no sense. I love this page because on it you'll find an author's purposes hidden in someone else's words. It's almost as if they are paying homage to someone else who puts as much thought into every syllable and every word. It's like they are giving the rest of the world, or at least a piece of it, credit for their creation. I love the first sentence. There is so much to be seen in an author's first thought because it no doubt came last in the process. In my opinion, a good author's first sentence is like that thesis that English teachers are always trying to get you to form. It says everything you need to know, yet begs to be explained. The last sentence is much the same. It has a sense of resolve, yet, in good books at least, leaves the reader with a bit of a question mark, pleading for further thought. 

My favorite books to pick up are novels. Not because they are easy to read, or entertaining, or because I have a vivid imagination, but because of the characters. I believe that characters in books are an author's best autobiography. Each time you get to know a character you learn about his creator. What I have learned about novels is that authors embed themselves into their characters.  All of the things they hope to be and all the things that they want to forget that they are. All the good, all the bad. The best and the worst all smashed into a selection of male and female counterparts. Characters carry the worldview of the authors and the doubts they may have. They carry culture, passions, and beauty as seen by the one who with every word and formed thought brings himself to life. Writing is a form of escapism but also a way to process. Storytelling is a way to separate life experiences, isolate them and handle them the way your imagination would before your impulses or emotions maybe got in the way. Writing is a way to say all of the things that you thought in your head "DANG. That's good! But it's way too real...I can't say that to him/her." In a novel, you can say what you mean, scream truth, or mimic those that think they know what truth is, all while hiding behind a version of yourself that you've created to act on your behalf. By reading novels you can begin to know the world. So much of our world revolves around how we think and perceive and by reading another human beings imagination, you can become intimate with the world of another. This is why I think every one should read. Not only that, this is why I think everyone should WRITE. Even if you suck. I think you need to write because I have much to learn about your world.

Binge Reading: So after all of that, I guess I should tell you what my addiction is. You guessed it I hope. Binge reading. Hot steamy love affairs with the written word. So this summer I binge read for about three weeks. My job got a little bit boring, Washington summer weather was not cooperating. I'd wake up and squint out of one eye and think "please don't let it rain today, please don't let it rain today, please don't let it rain today" only to find the pavement wet again.  I got sick of binge WATCHING Gossip Girl on Netflix. Bottom line is, I picked up a book. And for the next three weeks I couldn't put them down. Now, I've never been an alcoholic, or an addict, but every time I break my book sobriety I imagine the feeling is much like tasting a smooth 50 year old scotch after 10 years of my husband hiding it in the padlocked liquor cabinet (if I would have picked up Twilight it might have felt like a swig of the phenomenon that is Four Loko. Of course I mean no judgement upon either of these things but at this point in my life, DATS RATCHET.) I think the grand total for my book drunkeness was 12. 12 books in 21 days.

I felt alive. I got my escape. All of a sudden, my thoughts were less fragmented, my mind more clear, and my imagination running wild. My vocabulary also went up a pay grade. 

Basic Beezy Book Quotes: Y'all can call me basic, but for the first couple of days, I binge read all of John Greene's books. I wanted to see his most recent adaptation The Fault in Our Stars, so naturally, the book came first. But as I continued through his three other novels I began to notice something about his writing. John Greene's novels can be categorized as "teen fiction" you can find them next to anything by Meg Cabot, the Twilight bandwagon books, and Sarah Dessen's coming of age novels. His books are written with a simplicity in style and language that is very relatable and appealing to a demographic of screaming girls and emo kids. But there are so many aspects of Greene's writing that are not simple. His story content for example. TFIOS is about two cancer ridden kids that fall in the only kind of love they can manage while oblivion awaits them. If you think waiting to die but still trying to find a reason to live is simple and childish, you have other issues. In every one of Greene's books, story is developed almost to its ending. At this crucible moment, the characters usually come together in a form of dialogue. You can then expect that in the next 3-4 pages, you will get bitch slapped across the face with a John Greene truth bomb. His characters develop in a way makes them a mystery until they aren't. Throughout the book you know that there's something more to them, you're just waiting for them to say what you need them to say, and then their words will come together in sentences that you didn't even know were possible. The biggest example of this and pretty much the reason why I even started to write this now very lengthy blog vomit was in John Greene's Paper Towns. Quentin and his opposite Margo are sitting in the middle of nowhere in this "paper town" (this term is actually a very cool concept. Look it up.) While they are laying there, Margo says this,

“Maybe its like you said before, all of us being cracked open. Like each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And then things happen - these people leave us, or don’t love us, or don’t get us, or we don’t get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack in places. And I mean, yeah once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable. Once it starts to rain inside the Osprey, it will never be remodeled. But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And its only that time that we see one another, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face to face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade, but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.” 

RIGHT?!?! John Greene truth bomb. It happened. I'm pretty sure that there was a point in each of his books that I had to just put the book down and think for a few hours. This was one of them. I thought this metaphor was so skillfully explored and so completely relevant that I sat there wishing I wrote it myself. There is a poem by Mary Oliver that says,

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read
you keep feeling it
and though it can be my story
it will be in common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think--
no, you will realize--
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your heart
had been saying. 

Whenever I read something like the John Greene quote, I think about this poem. I want so badly to be the one that thought up this metaphor. Mostly because I feel like it is describing my life to me. I've been cracked open. I've tried to glue myself together, only to be smashed again. I think the Lord has cracked me at just the right times in my life so that I can learn to see outside myself and my cracks and really start to see other people. I've seen myself in a different light. In the last four years of my college career I've seen myself as an over-exaggerated, super extra human being. Losing all sense of responsibility, leadership, and dedication, all things that make me who I am. Hiding myself behind a loud laughter, a false but familiar spiritual ritual, and relationships. Then I saw myself at the complete opposite. Laid out to bare in front of myself and everyone around me and forced to deal with the fact that I failed. I was capable of making mistakes that would have consequences that I could not control no matter how hard I tried and no matter how much of myself I gave up. I saw myself shrinking to the point where it didn't seem like there were any pieces of me that were distinguishable to my shape. And it was painful. It sucked. But once I was cracked open, after I got over the initial shock, I started to see past the cracks in my armor. I started to see others. I saw friends that had willingly cracked themselves open for me just so that I could know them. I finally knew the difference because I saw the ones that kept themselves airtight and realized that I was forever at a disadvantage. Always cracked open far more than they deserved. 

Now I am me. I am free. I am redeemed. I am loved. I am fun. I am thoughtful. I am logical. I am spontaneous. I am passionate. I am responsible. I have friends. I'm not alone. I'm appreciated. I'm held accountable. I am WORTH IT. 

All of these things that I (most days) define myself as are marked by a crack in my armor. A life lesson or experience that cracked Satan's hold on me and allowed me to see truth shine through. But I am okay with that. Why? Because "once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out"