Time Bandits And Kung-Fu Focus

I am not a particularly fast reader, but I am diligent (assuming a person can be diligent in 15-minute chunks).  So, when a book manages to sink its luscious claws into me and I also have a nice pile of time on my plate, I am like Greg Louganis leaping off of third tower--diving in completely and deeply.

These past two days--when I wasn't working or eating or sleeping or walking Finn--I covered myself with the mesmerizing words of Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane," a strange, sometimes frightening, beautiful little book that somehow managed to tell me its story in 48 hours' time, despite me feeling like I've known its characters all of my life.

Compelling stories have a way of bending time, of fuzzying its edges and stretching its skin.

As I type this, I keep looking up from the keyboard, my eyes falling on the now-closed book laying on the desk across from me.  And I can't help feeling that Lettie Hempstock is--this very minute--writing herself new adventures in the white spaces between the words I just read.  Like a dream whose storyline seems to have started long ago, or an accident that I speed past on my way to work, surely these events and characters were unfolding before I arrived and will continue to play themselves out long after I've dropped their hard-bound home into the "return" slot.

It's been a summer of great, absorbing reads, stories I've eaten up both slowly and in the blink of an eye.  

Turns out, these books did more than just provide me with good stories--stories of rolling prairies ("My Antonia"), disparate friendships ("Dreams of Significant Girls"), distended bowels ("Gulp"), disturbing histories ("Molokai"), dystopian futures ("Insurgent" and "Son"), love and heartache ("Tell the Wolves I'm Home"), borrowed lives ("Every Day"), misunderstood spark ("My Name is Mina") and mystical childhoods ("The Ocean at the End of the Lane").

These books also have reminded me of the wisdom of being present, taking the time, and diving in.  While people these days show a capacity for diving in (if not the discernment to decide what, exactly, they are diving into), we really aren't so great at the other two--being present and taking the time.  But that's where books come in.

A well-told story requires patience and focus, small prices to pay for the rewards that it delivers.  Namely, a richer, deeper, more connected life, even if you are 51 and happen to live just a stone's throw from where you were born.