I am drunk on words, and it feels like it used to feel all the time, when I slipped through my teens among the pages of novels. My childhood sometimes feels like a story that happened to someone else; the real story was what I read in books. I can name old characters with more clarity than I can name old neighbors (except for the ones named Clell, because that name is too much like a story to forget). But as I grew up, the real world took precedence; the story world was something I dared not enter for too long, other than to write my own, because if left to my own devices I will let books devour me.
But I've been reading a lot the past week or so, slipping back into stories, perhaps finally so bored with quarantine that I've been forcibly brought back to something I used to love to lose myself in. I don't let myself read that often mostly because I can't stop once I start; the most I've read over the last few years was on plane rides, and those rides usually meant no sleep and a gritty-eyed viewing of whatever country I'd landed in, strung out on story and exhaustion and whatever wine they served on the plane.
Tonight, in my house for the seventieth day in a row, I finished THE STARLESS SEA. I loved it; a lot of people would not, but I like allegory and metaphor and overly-wrought symbolism, and the language was luscious regardless of how you feel about the plot. It's something I would consider reading again, just to see how she pieced it together; it's not something I would recommend without knowing the tastes of the person I was recommending it to. I read for hours tonight, as soon as I'd finished eating some leftover lasagna, first by sitting on my patio until the sun set, and then curled up in my chair with the spice of a moscow mule and a bit of breeze coming in through the patio door. And I should probably go to bed, since I have to work tomorrow...and I am no longer a teenager, and even though that past is indistinct, I know that I can't stay up until dawn like I did then and hope to function tomorrow.
Today was day seventy. Ten weeks ago tonight, I had a final decadent dinner out, with Katie, at El Five, watching the glimmering lights of downtown Denver while eating paella and drinking wine and speculating about what would happen next. The answer has not been kind; but the answer is not finished. We may only be at the beginning of this story - or we're at the end of it, and a new story is about to start.
But these are all ruminations for my journal, which is a much scarier, wilder place than the blog....and these ruminations are also for tomorrow, when I've had some sleep. Goodnight!
But I've been reading a lot the past week or so, slipping back into stories, perhaps finally so bored with quarantine that I've been forcibly brought back to something I used to love to lose myself in. I don't let myself read that often mostly because I can't stop once I start; the most I've read over the last few years was on plane rides, and those rides usually meant no sleep and a gritty-eyed viewing of whatever country I'd landed in, strung out on story and exhaustion and whatever wine they served on the plane.
Tonight, in my house for the seventieth day in a row, I finished THE STARLESS SEA. I loved it; a lot of people would not, but I like allegory and metaphor and overly-wrought symbolism, and the language was luscious regardless of how you feel about the plot. It's something I would consider reading again, just to see how she pieced it together; it's not something I would recommend without knowing the tastes of the person I was recommending it to. I read for hours tonight, as soon as I'd finished eating some leftover lasagna, first by sitting on my patio until the sun set, and then curled up in my chair with the spice of a moscow mule and a bit of breeze coming in through the patio door. And I should probably go to bed, since I have to work tomorrow...and I am no longer a teenager, and even though that past is indistinct, I know that I can't stay up until dawn like I did then and hope to function tomorrow.
Today was day seventy. Ten weeks ago tonight, I had a final decadent dinner out, with Katie, at El Five, watching the glimmering lights of downtown Denver while eating paella and drinking wine and speculating about what would happen next. The answer has not been kind; but the answer is not finished. We may only be at the beginning of this story - or we're at the end of it, and a new story is about to start.
But these are all ruminations for my journal, which is a much scarier, wilder place than the blog....and these ruminations are also for tomorrow, when I've had some sleep. Goodnight!
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