tuesday

On the Age of Glass

This morning, for it is dawn, though not in this city and not in this instance, I finished the History of Love. There was a time when I stopped believing in modern fiction, for it did not move me, as much as I tried to move it. I was prideful in taking what was not mine from books that were not written for me (though at first, I imagined they were). And so I changed. It was in the emptiest of books that I found humbleness to seek, virtue to emulate, and wisdom deeper than the lines of any face. I looked into the hands of those who had written words and saw a reflection of the sea, though I wanted to see myself (and never did). I would sit in chairs and read and think of those who had written words, and where they might have written them. It did not matter where. The hope that the strings of my heart could be plucked in new ways was enough to discard the history and hold inside of me what remained. And so I finished the History of Love. And I found myself inside of words that were not mine, and people I thought I could be someday, if given enough time, enough rain to wet my hair, enough distance from the reality of my face and of my heart. I thought, no paper spine can change me; it is only through the linked connection of my eyes and words that the concrete disappears and the abstract, the invisible and pure can overwhelm and inundate and change. I thought, in my bed, warm air pushing into my sides through my closed blinds blocking the winter light, I can be changed. It is possible that I won’t. That I may break and shatter like the glass bottles guarding my books on my shelf. But there is the possibility for transformation; for a new version of myself to emerge inside of what feels a murky lack of distinction. And yet. There are a thousand words in those two words, “and yet.” And I should like to live inside of those two words and walk away, changed, but only slightly; the happiest and the saddest I have ever been, my skin one shade darker, my eyes that much heavier, my hair that second longer. Arthur Rimbaud writes of Illuminations, of visionaries, and “tortures that laugh in the terrible surge of their silence.” Perhaps, the Book holds not the opportunity to transform and change, but to illuminate the very things that are already inside of us, the very strings within us we feel tremble when we hear beautiful music or make contact with a charming pair of clever eyes, the laughter that builds within us when we allow our feet to truly dance. Those feelings when they strike us, however old, however new, should be enough. Enough, at times, meaning, “the whole world.” At other times meaning, “this very moment in time that I am standing next to you with our shoulders touching.” And even, “knowing that this exists and that I may find it.”