musings on reading in the last rays of the setting sun
Posted on April 29, 2008 - Filed Under general, santa fe
sitting here in the growing dark, typing in jdarkroom with nothing but green text on the black screen, is nice. i’ve been reading a lot lately. i suppose some of that is just pure escapism. but there’s more there. something soothing about reading. just the feel of the paper on my fingers calms me. sometimes the smell of a good book will do it. i’m reading another murakami book. this one is called sputnick sweetheart. i picked it up about a month ago and put it back down. the time wasn’t right. just a few days ago, i grabbed it again. now is the time for it. i’m not sure what it is about his books. like few others, his writing has a way of triggering something deep inside. when i’m reading it, it’s like a story inside of me but that i never would have found without his help.
i’ve wondered if it’s something merely “japanese” about it that makes me feel kind of zen, relaxed. i guess maybe there is some of that. maybe in a way it makes me remember when i was in japan and some of those feelings i had wandering around tokyo by myself for a few weeks. i guess there is some truth to that. a murakami story makes me feel simple in all the best ways. which is odd really because his stories are weird. they’re not simple. which is to say that when i’m reading them, it makes perfect sense but as soon as i try to explain it to someone i’m left saying something like, “no you see, the sheep isn’t a real sheep that he’s chasing. it’s a sheep that lives inside of people.” i then realize that what i’m saying isn’t simple, doesn’t “make sense.” however, when it’s just me and the pages, the feel of the paper, perhaps charles mingus playing softly, well then it all makes sense. something clicks, something fits. i guess i look at his works of fiction as something genius, which is my way of saying that i don’t understand what it is that makes his stores great, but believe them to be so regardless.
so, i’ve been reading a lot lately. been under a lot of stress. a lot going on. new work. lots of work. it’s been grey. cold. snow in april. a feeling of piling it on, really. so i’ve been reading a lot. when i’m not working, that is.
i got a few new books in the last two days. one if thoughts without a thinker. it’s sort of a buddhist/psychology book. i’m curious to see where it leads. the other, i’m more curious about. i heard about it on mpr a few weekends ago. it’s a story told through suicide notes. well, to be fair, suicide notes and one side of a transcript of an interview. i wasn’t expecting that last part and to be honest, i feel a little cheated. however, mostly i feel intrigued. who thinks to themselves, “hey, i think i’ll tell a story strictly through the medium of suicide notes.”? i mean, that’s crazy right? at the very least, it’s odd. and it’s something that intrigues me. someone recently told me that he thinks suicide is part of the cultural zeitgiest, or something along those lines. i had to ask him what he meant. i think i could sum it up by saying that he feels that the general culture is sort of obessessed but in a back of the mind sort of way.
anyway, i’ve been wondering why that is. i think part of it could be that as a country, we’re all a little scared. we feel the great machine winding down, or up, i’m not sure. but whichever way it’s going, we feel an end coming. something in our culture, our country has to change. more than ever, people are depressed. people work too hard and have nothing to show for it. we can’t even fall back on our families or friends in many cases (i feel rather lucky to have such a good support network). we’re left with nothing but our work. work that doesn’t satisfy. we’re left feeling empty and asking the question. always asking, what next?
or maybe a beginning. maybe we can turn it around. maybe it’s not too late. maybe we can find a way to slow ourselves down. to calm ourselves down. at the end of the day, i’m left feeling frenetic. that’s the word that’s been in my head lately. when i sit down and listen to a little mingus, read a little murakami, that feeling goes away for a time. it slides away. things in our world here seem so hard, everyone is fighting all the time to . . . . what? i’m not sure. but when i slow down, when i’m just reading or listening to a soft album in the background, i don’t feel like i’m fighting. i don’t feel like everything is a stuggle. i begin to see that the world can be . . . simple.
well simple is, just too simple i guess. it’s more a feeling of calm. there are subtleties. there are complexities. there are things that ebb and flow and move like tides in the moonlight. there are these things. but i guess with the right movement there is no need for the feeling of struggle. it’s possible to move with the tides. it’s possible to ebb and flow. it’s possible to simply feel calm.
but it’s hard. it’s a stuggle. or at least it seems that way.
until i find a way for it not to be.
for now, i think i’ll sit back with my book for the evening.
Comments
Leave a Reply
