Wonder

During summer, I try to read two books a week. Not a children's book, mind you, or even a short story, but a book. Some years, I make a list of my goals, or focus on a specific genre. Last year, studying for the GRE, I read a lot of classics. This year, my goal is to read all of the books I own.

In some ways, this challenge is significantly more difficult than living out of my local library. The many, many books that line my walls, pile beside my bed, sprawl across my settee, and lie scattered across my floor always seem to murmur "Don't mind us, we can wait. Find something new, before it's gone" as I glance their way. And so I go to my library, scrounging the shelves for a treasure I've yet to encounter. My library discards "unwanted' books routinely; in the past month, I have found out that they have gotten rid of 2 books that I have deeply loved. What if they throw away more books that hold wonder within them, a beauty I will never discover? I am afraid of that.

And yet.

In my room, I have 4 bookshelves, all overfull. I line my closet shelf, my writing desk, every space I have to spare, with books. Many of these, I have read and loved. Some, I am saving for my children to rejoice in, little-known stories that I would pour over as a child myself. But there is a good percentage of these beautiful books that wait, ever-patient, for me to discover wonder within their pages. And so, this summer, I hope to open them, to read them. Some, I may be disappointed by. Some, I might hate. But there will be some that I will love. And, in my frantic search to find wonder in some other place, maybe I am ignoring the hours of joy all around me merely because they are lying around my room instead of neatly lined and ordered on sterilized shelves.

So, I guess to sum it all up: Stop looking for beauty, wonder, and mystery in every place except your own home, because there is more lying under your own nose than what you could possibly fathom.