To Read or Not to Read

July 2nd, 2007
Task #83
Visit the biggest bookstore in America: Powells in Portland

My being is like a sailing ship, that is not ready or destined to dock…it is always roaming about the waters. Yet, my being still finds the light from the house on the shore assuring….Books are my lighthouses. They provide groundedness---a stability, in malleable form…always changing, the interpretation so connected to experience of the here and now.

For the past two moves of my life, I go through a process of purging items. I rate my belongings on a scale of 1-5 and only items rated a 4 or 5 come with me. I don’t own much, so it must say something that 50% of the boxes I unpack each time are books of some sort.

And I have a passion for independent bookstores. This is my “Cheers”…my church. My place of worship, where the sacredness in me is honored and I am known as a regular, and often recognizable for pursuing the “pews” but also so unknown as well by the other parishoners, the most essential parts of me hidden or unexplored, and only tapped into when I pick up a book and possibility fumes from the pages below.

God help me should I ever go blind…my heart would hurt so much from the lack of freedom I would experience from the depravity of picking up a book and the surge of empowerment I feel from deciding whether to read or not to read…

For me, books are a pathway to hope. They are the key to transformation, the illumination of evolution. Not an escape, but a compass for sailing in a direction to an undiscovered, yet-to-be-named terrain that waits for me to claim it as my own.

And thus, Powells in Portland was mind-blowingly awesome. So awesome that I hope that it starts a new tradition of seeking out independent bookstores wherever I travel…any suggestions?

Indulgement

In the last few days, I have been thinking a lot about the fact that I will die. And how my mind doesn’t acknowledge or recognize this inevitability.

I am not the sort to indulge myself, and my body often lacks indulgement. As explained previously, I live by a gospel of a lot of “shoulds.” These shoulds promote morality, guide decision making, and for the most part, make me a fuller human being. More Compassionate, More Empathetic, More Capable, More, More, More…

But often less as well…

Less Spontaneous. Less Flexible. Less Creative, Less…., well, Alive.

Believe me, I disdain the frivolous luxuries espoused by the Carrie Bradshaw’s and other caricatures of the media. Most of the single women I know do not spend their money on expensive shoes or eat decadent brunches complete with Champagne with each other every Sunday. Heck, most of us prefer Charles Shaw to $10 martinis and a cute Target bag over Prada.

While there is as much diversity in single women as unsingles, for me, my life is a tribute to functionality, purpose. I “should not indulge” because there are so many other things THAT NEED MY ATTENTION…and besides, indulgement leads to wastefulness, excess, and for me, ultimately guile that siphons the pleasure of the experience in the first place.

This pattern of behavior is supported by rationalization that I don’t really need to be indulgent. I look down on it.

But, Oh, how bland is life with out it?

So today, I am off for task #12…see my post about it here: http://specialktreatment101in1001.blogspot.com/

Suffice it to say, that I do need to indulge. I need nourishment, pure reminders of aliveness, where I freely love what I love and the experience does not LAST. It is transient, there is no testament, no trophy, it just is.

Can it be that in pursuit of conservation, in movement towards stewardship, that wastefulness is produced?
In denying myself indulgement, I am less alive. And I will die alone. So today, I am thankful to be single, because perhaps without the distraction of other, I would not be so close to being alive.