To Read, To Live

At night , after all the chores have been completed, everyone has been put to bed, and my husband is quietly snoring by my side, I look over at my nightstand and scan the titles.

The books are neatly stacked so the bindings always face the same way.  I can, at a glance, reach for a heart warming tale of love and loss or immerse myself in the gripping saga of frontier life. These are somebody’s words, put on paper, painstakingly thought out plots that at times don’t live up to the expectation but that nonetheless come from inside another human being, to reach me in my own bed.

This is my second life, the life where I get to swing from cliffs by a frayed rope, smoke a pipe while unraveling a  secret, start a movement to end women’s oppression.  Anything is possible between the pages of a book and late at night when there is only a small halo of light around me I can almost imagine that it is me, riding the winning horse through the finish line.

With the lamp dimly glowing next to me, I am never more than a few pages away from mystery, intrigue, passion, laughter. I flip a page, trying hard not to wake my husband, and sink deeper into the twisting plot. I don’t stop until the words begin to blur in front of me. My head feels fuzzy and I know that in the morning I will regret my late night indulgence.