I got caught in literary limbo this morning. I abruptly came to the end of a book I was reading and then it ended just like that. I was so involved and invested in the characters of this book that I paid no attention to the end which was apparently coming fast. And I use a Kindle which actually tells me in specific terms how far I've come in the book. I'm not complaining, just pointing out one of life's little pleasures: Getting lost in a book. On the train. On a Thursday morning.
Then I sat there doing my best not to make eye contact with a stranger fearing they'd think I was staring at them, and yearned (yearned?) for more. It was a good book, yes, but I want this feeling to come from more arenas of my life. I'm pretty sure it has happened after I cooked something surprisingly delicious (like the biscuits and gravy I made a couple weeks ago from scratch). Or after kick ass sex (the kind that stays with you the next day and gets in the way of all your spreadsheets and fax cover sheets). Can you imagine what a commute on the train would be like if all the riders had just gotten laid thirty minutes prior?
I guess that's what finishing a good book feels like. Or maybe finishing any book, good or not. You work to get to the end and then bask in it for a while. Is the larger message here about appreciation? Do we need more appreciation in our daily lives. It's easy to take for granted little things like operable escalators, or an unbroken shoestring, or a kiss. Have we forgotten, or were we never taught, that epic stories start with a kiss?
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