Redtree Times

Comforter – At the Principle Gallery

A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

― E.B. White

The words above from author E.B. White, best known for his beloved Charlotte’s Web, struck a chord with me.

I have been having a hard time in the past year or two in simply sitting still and reading for more than few moments at a time. I have felt severely distracted by current events along with the tensions that come with them. It’s often hard to focus and as a result my reading had suffered mightily.

It has left me feeling unmoored and adrift, which certainly has added to the anxieties already in place.

Reading has always been my comforter. It has been a refuge, an enlightener, a mentor and a sage. It has made me laugh and cry.

And to think about those inner conversations I have had with those people, as White points out, who have stayed alive by hiding between the covers of those books.

So much is lost by the absence of my reading. Unfortunately, it’s one of those losses that come as you slowly drift further and and further from your base, that rock on which you have built the world in which you live. It comes in small, barely noticeable increments until you reach a point where you have drifted far from those solid shores and begin to notice things are missing.

You feel lost and even a bit panicky. If you’re lucky, you recognize the dilemma and begin to paddle back in the direction where you believe your little rock of being remains.

The unlucky of us are destined to drift even further out to sea, And that is sad and lonely as it sounds.

I think I have caught it early enough in my case. I hope so. I am trying to reconnect with my rock, to find company in that world of wonders that live in those books.

Excuse me while get to it…