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By Alana Garnaat
For my entire life, books have been a constant.
When I was a toddler, my mother or one of my older siblings would read books to me. Little Golden Books, Read-Aloud Bible Stories, Aesop’s Fables, Horton Hears a Who, Curious George, Madeline.
Growing up, reading might have been the only thing I was naturally good at. I do not remember learning how. I like to think that I’ve always known. To me, words have always had meaning. If a book looked interesting to me, I read it. If I got bored, I stopped. No one needed to tell me what difficult words meant; I figured them out myself. Books were new and full of freedom and possibilities.
My older sister Sara would read me books almost every night before bed, just one or two chapters at a time. Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Nancy Drew, American Girl, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When she went off to college, I continued to read by myself. I was desperate. I would finish a story aching for another. I kept reading and reading and reading. A Journey to Freedom, The Door Within, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Little Pilgrim’s Progress, Anne of Green Gables. Story after story, I could not read them fast enough. A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, The Tale of Despereaux, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, The Indian in the Cupboard, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Books were magical and full of adventures and excitement.
When I was in middle school, I would wander back and forth along the three tall bookshelves at my house maybe once or twice a month. My hungry eyes would flash from one title to the next. I’d pick out every book that promised an exciting adventure or suspenseful mystery and bring them into my room. There I had an entire bookshelf to myself. Eventually, I convinced my parents to buy a second shelf at a garage sale. I filled that one too.
The librarians at the high school knew me by name. I would figure out a way to get there two maybe four times a week. Besides my own room, it was my favorite place to be. The familiar smell of old paper greeted me each time. There were always keyboards clicking, people playing chess at the tall table by the youth section, and a long fish tank on the far wall. I would happily pick out the next book in a series, return the ones I had finished, or check to see if any fresh books had arrived.
In high school, I was forced to read more academically focused books. The Chosen, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Walden, The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath, Animal Farm. They didn’t catch my attention. I never got addicted to their pages. To be honest, I did not finish most of them. Sorry, Mrs. Smith. Not all of them were draining reads. They were cushioned with tales of distant worlds and powerful protagonists. Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Pearl Maiden, The Scarlet Letter, To Kill a Mockingbird, Treasures of the Snow, Little Women, The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Harry Potter.
The Deathly Hallows kept me so heavily engrossed that I stayed up until 4 am on a school night. Going to sleep in the middle of the Battle of Hogwarts was just not an option for me. I had to finish, no matter how little sleep I got. Even though some books were dull, many were fascinating and full of suspense.
In college, reading has become less of a hobby and more of a necessity, an escape to a safe haven. Redeeming Love, Blink of an Eye, Sherlock Holmes, The Giver, The Book Thief. When life gets tedious or frustrating, I can rely on the books in my house to steal me away to a different time and place. I love to ruminate on them and think of treasured sentences. Some character’s voices play over and over in my mind. There are times when my husband just sits quietly and smirks at me while I rant for half an hour about my current read. I love to tell him about my favorite lines, a character’s embarrassing moment, or the perfect use of irony or symbolism. Sometimes, we like to talk over the books that we have both read, pointing out the deeper questions and themes. Books are beautiful and full of profound views into human existence.
The problem is that I often find my mind divided. When I sit down to complete my homework assignments, my thoughts will wander towards something I recently read or what I should read next. When I am reading, I feel a guilty pull back to reality. Maybe it is not possible to be a true book lover and be fully in the present at the same time. My mind is split between the things I love, the stories on the pages and the people around me. It’s strange and beautiful and scary how fictional worlds and characters can seem more real to me than my own sometimes.
Books themselves are embodiments of contradiction. They are new yet familiar. Stimulating yet peaceful. Comical yet profound. Complex yet simple. Beautiful yet plain. My own life is fueled by these contradictions. My world is a kaleidoscope of the extraordinary and the ordinary. How those two merge together is a mystery to me. Sometimes I like to sit back and marvel at the vibrant pictures of life. The colors are constantly in motion. Authentic smiles, side-splitting laughter, dancing in the living room, calm evenings, raw conversations. These moments are all around me. I put the memories into words in my mind and tell the stories to myself when I need them.
I think books have helped me see the world in this way. They showed me the perfect imperfections of life, the small moments in my history that made me who I am today. In a way, books held my hand and brought me to where I am now.
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