For me, reading has always been an escape, an attainable means of flight, if you will. Whenever reality became too tangible for my liking, I would blindly reach for a book; It always felt like dipping my hands in a bowl of warm water after standing too long in the icy burn of the wind. I read for many reasons, but at one point it was mainly a neat, plausible solution for dealing with the bullying at school. With a book to slip into, it was easier to handle; it seemed barely real to me – something innocuous and laughable as a paper clown.
Reading was the prayer I nuzzled against, my escape hatch, a convenient crack in the wall. It was a way for me to experience other realities and try out different personalities, to feel their shape and weight and run my hands through their contents. In the face of a world that is unfair, cruel and dizzyingly out of control, stories are compensatory. I regained my voice through the language of others, through books, and realised someone else has navigated those dark straits for me, giving voice to that experience. This meant I was no longer limited to the leaden skies and stifling horizons around me; l was free to travel anywhere I wished. After every book I felt a wonderful shift in me, like the unfurling of warm bread. It was all it took to keep the reality from unravelling around the borders. Overtime this became a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth, and to this day it is my preferred method of floating through a particularly harsh reality.
All this to say that reading is a wonderful escape – it makes the experience of stumbling through life helplessly a bit less lonely and painful.
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