My journeys in Books
In my greatest journeys and in my moments of solitude, I have carried a book. Why? To keep me company, to make me travel roads that I never would have. To meet a person I have never met. To laugh at my mistakes and the mistakes of others, to play with snow, which in real life I have never touched. In books I have met handsome men, I have been told stories of great heroes like Lwanda Magere. I have learnt how sign language is a deeply intimate talk. I have met people who share my dreams, who love adventure, people who would want a kiss of heaven.
Every time I pass a street with book shops I can not help but stare. I judge books by their covers, even when I know I should not. I judge books by their writers, even when I know that I can find a remarkable writer, that I have never heard of, and is neither famous. I judge the books by their colours, because they matter, because red catches my attention. I have been told that men are attracted to colour red. Does this mean I have guy instincts?
Big words, I have learnt from books. Not because I intend to use them, but because I want to know what someone says to me when they use those big words. I have climbed a hill in a book; I have smiled at a child in a book. I have saved a day in a book; I have hugged my worst enemy and betrayed my best friend in a book. I have loved that could not love me back in a book. I have met an angel, I have kissed heaven, I have seen God and talked to St. Michael in a book. Because in a book am a free person, am not tied to culture, my gorgeous looks can pass unnoticed like that beggar in a street.
I laugh, I cry, I sit, I watch, I contemplate, I meditate, I pray, I wish, I desire, I long, all these in a book. In a book I have met people who could not write, but because of them great stories were written. I have met men who loved women who couldn’t stay, but they loved them any way, because that’s the only way they new how. Am told severally, love genuinely and deeply because it is the only way to live.
In a book I have met a mystery that I left unsolved, because I believed it did not belong to me. In another I took the challenge because I believed it was meant for me. I have traveled a thousand miles in a second. I have grasped the whole universe in the palm of my hand. I have sung like and angel, even though I know I croak like a toad, and make a joyful noise in the name of singing. This is what makes a book interesting. It teaches you how to hold on and to let go. To fight when you know you will win the battle, and lose the war. To hold your head high, even when you know in the next second, the whole world will crumble before you. A book has taught me to believe, even when all faith is gone, to believe without the promise of tomorrow. That’s a book, all in one.
I have read a book to grasp what mathematics is, to juggle with formulas, that sometimes, honestly, I do not know an instance that I will need to apply them. I have read a book to fly with a pilot to see what she sees when she is up in the clouds. To dress a wound of a patient just like a nurse. I have moved to spread the gospel just like the evangelist, to meet humors people and comedians. Who would I be, if I did not know how to laugh? If I did not know how to walk in the foot steps of a model and see their glamour? To meet a shepherd and learn how he talks to his sheep. I have traveled a lot in books, and in those stories, I did not write because, I thought I did not know how.
A farmer I met once, in a book, who taught me how to grow melons and I hanged on because it was my son’s favourite fruit. I sat with a girl who wanted to have a normal father-daughter relationship in a book. I met a lady who fought the world to save her marriage in a book. I met a boy who drank his poor soul to death in a book. I can’t help but wonder why all of a sudden I am obsessed in books. Or may be it is written. On 12th August 2009, a beautiful girl, in the heart of
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