Miracles

I woke up with my life lying on the floor. Everything was in shambles and none of my thoughts coherent. I could cry, but then I felt the drought in my tear glands, from overuse. A mild headache was setting in, you know the kind when you can't express in any form what exactly you're feeling so it comes out as a headache? Yes, that.

I started cleaning up my room furiously. It's just my way of getting control in my otherwise out of control world. First came the clothes then the magazine rack and so on. It was only after a while that I thought of cleaning out the chest of books. I dusted out the cobwebs and chastised myself for letting those lovely beauties gather all that dust.

My hands fall upon this one book I'd read a really long time ago, a time when my life was in a similar phase. That book had helped then. I thought, why not now? I closed my eyes, feeling a little silly as I was doing it and opened a random page.

 I cast my eyes on the flowing words. As I read word after word, sentence after sentence, I do not know if I should have been amazed or scared at how those two pages gave me the exact solution to what has been bothering me. The book spoke to me. In that chestful of books, I choose to pick exactly that book and opened exactly those two pages and I received advice I'd been hunting for a while now.

How then, can we not believe in miracles? 

A Whole New World

                        Books amaze me. The way a single book, a single chapter, a single page, a single line can turn my life upside down is the most baffling thing. The impact words can create is breathtaking. When I advise or rather urge a non reader to pick up a book, I want them to understand the urgency with which I speak. For everyday passing without a novel in hand, is a day half lived. It doesn't make a difference as to what you read. What counts, the only thing that counts is that you open the pages of something that opens your mind to a whole new world and captures your heart like none other can.

The start.

     It all started on some beautiful day when i was just nine. I had an Enid Blyton book in one hand and was tugging mom's dress with the other. I was pleading i wanted the book but for once she didn't say a direct no. She just asked why. I had a simple answer. It had fairies on the cover and i loved all magical creatures,even the trolls (I guess i still do). And for once despite the lack of money to afford it she directly bought it for me. I was overjoyed and couldn't wait to get back home to read it. There started my journey,simple as that. 
     I don't know what it was about that first book but from that day i could never stop. Maybe its the dreamer in me that loves entering the new world every book potentially holds. But more than that i realize its something else. Something that took me 8yrs of reading to figure out. But then,atleast i figured it out.
     Books make me human. In bad times when i feel like i'm going numb a good book full of emotions gets me out of it. They hold the power to make me laugh,cry,smile and think. Every beautiful,good book i read leaves a small part of itself in me.Somehow a book can help me connect to myself. Has anyone ever felt that or is it just me?

    You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. 

-Paul Sweeney.