A fourteen dollar book. Fourteen dollars it originally cost to purchase, and by virtue of being unworthy to reside on someone’s shelf, in someone’s personal library, was I able to obtain it for only two dollars and some change. You can still find treasures in thrift stores these days, but striking it rich usually involves a bit of luck - and an amorphous definition of “rich.” Somehow it is a better deal than the book I borrowed for free - though I think any person, even with the fiercest set of pearly off-whites, would prefer soft bread over a tough, chewy steak.
“How long were you sitting on the edge of the tub?”
“Good question. Forty five minutes, perhaps?”
A little epsom salt this go-around to make my foot-soaking habit, two days old at this point, a little more encouraging didn’t do much for my rump. My toes get cold very easy in this house. Built in the 1940’s and sagging in the middle like a victim of famine, the cold finds its way in through every crevice and crack and around every ill-fitting door. Here it comes. Wool socks only help to maintain temperature, so a cold foot stays cold.
My first attempt at curing my cold toes syndrome was a smash hit. No magnesium sulfate the first time; it had been so often overlooked reaching into the hallway closet where the bath towels were stored that it just didn’t register in my conscious mind that it was even an option. Maybe I could chalk it up to the nature of habits and rituals. The novelty, the newness, of soaking my feet in a tub of warm water meant I hadn’t even contemplated every possible permutation or branch in the decision tree along the way. These were uncharted waters, everything intended. But that newness of this activity cannot be understated, for it not only achieved the goal of warming my feet, but it gave me a chance to just sit in peace, and read.
A chance to read this fourteen dollar edition of this book that I snagged from a thrift store shelf for only two dollars and some change. The chewy steak of a book I had tried to break my reading fast with proved far too sinewy and strenuous for me to even enjoy any flavor it secreted. However, this warm, yeasty bread of a novel is certainly easier on the jaw, and more digestible, too. When I could manage to soften a bite or two of whole muscle fiber enough to swallow, it was not pleasurable in the slightest. It sat heavy on the stomach, waiting patiently to dissolve while acid and bile washed over it like a jutting rock endures crashing waves on the coast; slowly eroding, but on a timescale only fourth- and fifth-dimensional beings can contemplate. I have pushed the plate of tough meat away for good - I politely decline to entertain it any further.
Since I was young, after finishing a book or watching a movie, I would adopt the mannerisms and modes of thinking of either the main character or my favorite character from the story. For a while after, my reality is tinted, seen through a different lens. The mental scaffolding around which my world and worldview were constructed is rearranged, reshaped; sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. The fact that I’m even writing all of this is testament to this phenomenon. Good bread shouldn’t be underestimated. Likewise, reading this book leaves in me a sort of lingering effect, like the subtle high felt from secondhand smoke. It is light, sublime, but noticeable. Like the feeling when I finished a chapter, the song playing in the background ended, and receiving a text message from my significant other all occurring at once.
A most wonderful set of simple coincidences.
It’s late. My eyelids are heavy, like stage curtains, eagerly waiting for the end of Act III so they can be drawn closed while the lights dim and fade. There is no applause, though they reopen one last time to remember where I am, and not for any bowing or roses.
This book may have been just what I needed to start down a more productive path this year. Like most people bereft of an attention span these days, I grow weary of it and the toll it takes on my psyche. Unlike most of those people, I will adhere to my own adage, my mantra: “Nothing changes until I do.” Some changes stick, and others will not. The sacred act of trying means I can sleep a little easier at night, knowing I am at least aware of the torturous cycle I’ve found myself in, nudging myself ever so slightly out of orbit around a cold, dead star. Altering my trajectory a little bit at a time should be more effective than any hard left turn ever could be.
I don’t say this to prop myself up, to give my ego a reason to think I’m better than anyone. We all find change at our own pace, because we are all at different points in our individual lives. If I can serve as an example of that fact, that there is a better way of doing things, then so be it. Some burdens choose us, the way stray cats adopt new owners. Leaving food out will undoubtedly attract critters, whether they are cats or opossums or something else.
Reading has been reigniting old neuronal pathways, hacking away the brush from long forgotten trails. The ability to just stop, sit, soak my feet, and consume the words from the pages like breadcrumbs left by the author pulls a lens in front of my eyes, seeing colors I forgot existed. It brings objects into focus that I had grown so used to being blurry and ill-defined. It has stirred in me a desire to express myself through writing, a form of creation and expression very different from painting, or playing music. It is not superior to those modes, it’s just different. I strive to continue this habit, because I don’t know what would happen over the coming year if I continued down the same well-trodden path I have been for far too long now.
Perhaps I’ll document it; writing down whatever comes to mind, whatever the universe sends my way, whatever the eternal Now deems fit to show me. Here it comes.