A Love Affair With Books

I have a deep connection to books. I can walk into a bookstore and feel a sense of calm come over me. Sometimes when I’m under a lot of stress, I will go to Barnes and Noble and just walk around. The feeling I get looking at and smelling the books around me is overpowering and enveloping. There is nothing quite like visiting an old bookshop in a new (or old) city. It’s a treasure hunt that keeps you thirsting for the surprise at the end.

Yes, people read and many people enjoy it. But, there are a select few who have a true love affair with that bound paper containing a world beyond.

It’s funny. It is not just the story that draws me in so much (although, the stories are incredible escapes), but it’s the whole thing. It’s the paper and words and smells and language. It’s the imagination and the sense of more. It’s the fact that I can hold something tangible in my hand and feel a power in the weight of the pages. It’s the smells that tell time – new books and old. It’s the history that lives in the stories that got to where I am on that particular day holding that particular book.

I dream of a library. One that I know will never be full but also never be completely read. And maybe that’s the beauty of it. Maybe it’s the fact that there is so much out there that my treasure hunt will never end. I will never satiate my thirst for more, but I will also never tire of the adventure. Maybe that’s the magic that those letters and words and pages and books hold for me. The magic that keeps this love affair alight.