Thursday, January 6, 2011

I think I have a book crush on Antoine...

There was a flaw in my logic when I started out today. I have a dentist appointment today & instead of driving across town twice, I decided to eat lunch at Green Bean & read for a few hours before my appointment.  It makes sense, except I'm reading "Wind, Sand, and Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It's one of those books that you can't just sit down & read for the afternoon. Saint-Exupery has this magical way of writing where he tells one story and makes this unexpected point or observation about humanity in such a way that it's almost blinding every time. You can't just read such a book continuously, it must be taken in chunks. Every time I read a bit of his works, I have to think on it. It's the most amazing sensation, reading something by him, because it fills you with such awe and all these thoughts and you get stuck on them to the point of stillness. Yes, I am swimming in all these thoughts and yet I feel perfectly still.

 If I had a magical time machine & could speak french, I would jump back in time in a heart beat to speak to Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I would gladly sit in a cafe in France with him and talk about anything. I have a feeling that to just talk about the weather with him would turn into an extraordinary conversation. That's the thing I love about books, they're like a crystallized moment in time. Even though I cannot have coffee with my favorite author, I can read his books and have a small look into his world. You can get to know some authors through their works and feel like they are old friends. Sometimes, in some strange way, I feel that those who would understand me the most are these authors who have left this world long ago. There are days where I walk around this life feeling just slightly out of place, however I have never seen this as a bad thing. I prefer to live in my world of wonder, where ideas are my play things & everything is lit with imagination.