Secret Confessions of a Smart Girl

I have a weakness for the written word. A good book, for me, is actually an experience that I live rather than simply sterile words on a page. I suppose that is, in part, why I read so little non-fiction outside of work. With no story I cannot be transported. Why on earth would I want to give up the joyful journey?

All the getting soaked by rain and sitting for hours afterward in air conditioned rooms this week took its toll on me, and I have come down with a dreadful cold. My preferred method for dealing with being sick enough that work is impractical, a border I crossed sometime yesterday morning, is to sleep as much as possible and read when it is not. At times like this, I tend to pull out my old favorites, and after wandering around the house for a bit staring at bookshelves I settled on the Caroline Stevermer series “A College of Magics.”

I like these books very much. The characters are terribly sensible and responsible, while still being more than a tad whimsical and wicked, and they have a truly delightful sense of relationships. Relationships which, by and large, are completely asexual without being at all judgemental about the sexuality that goes on around the fringes. That’s not entirely true, I suppose. In both of the first two books the more sexual characters tend to have other faults as well, but it doesn’t feel like a morality issue. Anyway, that’s not really the point of what I wanted to write about.

I have, ever since I was a child, often lived my life through books. It’s not so much that I was sheltered as that in real life I was ugly and unpopular and when I was reading I was whomever the author wanted me to be. So, given a choice, I preferred living life in print or on stage, where I could be someone other than the gawky girl in the glasses who no one paid much attention to other than to mock. It both prepared me wonderfully for the world and left me woefully ignorant about actual human interactions. Even to this day, I still often think things will unfold like they do in stories. I know they won’t, but I tell myself tales of possible futures and imagine living them in the moments that carry me from day to day. It’s a horrible habit, and because of it I often doom myself to disappointment. Most of the time, life doesn’t unfold the way it does in books, and even on the days it magically, wonderfully, does, the days when your dreams are right to hand, there is usually some subconscious realization that tomorrow it will all return to the mundane. Still, those moments are glorious, and if you can’t achieve them through good works or great ambitions you can always relive them on the written page.

Often, what draws me to a particular author, series, or book, is the way in which it deals with relationships. I find it fascinating the way in which what appeals to me has changed. When I was younger, when I was full of hormones but empty of experience, I used to read certain types of books for the sex. These days, I as often as not find myself skimming over the sex to savor the sense of connection. If I am drawn out of my reader’s reverie it is less likely to be with thoughts like “I wish I could feel that physical sensation” and more with thoughts of “if only I could get that sense of peace and belonging.” Having learned that there can be wonderful, fulfilling, crazy, dangerous, even mind-blowing sex in the real world, I need it less from my literature. I have not, as of yet, had the same sort of transformative experience of translating literary to real world love. In books, I can get my sex out of context from turned down pages, single chapters, or even semi-legible printouts. That’s true in life as well. I’ve become substantially more skilled at dropping into peoples worlds for brief moments of passionate connection. Love, though… is context. It’s not about the moments so much as the huge pools of daily existence that frame them. New relationship energy is easy. Day to day happiness is something I am often tempted to believe is something that is solely the provice of books, or at least of other people.

Contentment is a skill. I know people who have it in abundance, who have no need to do the next thing all the time, who are simply happy with who they are and what they’re doing. I envy them. I think I may have the least aptitude for it of just about anyone I know. It’s not just about love and relationships, in every aspect of my life I am always thinking about what it will take to climb the next height even as I celebrate each triumph. There are very few times when I can turn off that piece of my brain. When I read. When I dance. When I make music. When I submit. I cherish those moments that engage me fully, and it is odd to be a person who so thoroughly values both her intellect and the things that help her completely turn it off.

It’s nice to step into other worlds for a little while and do the things I’d otherwise be sure to fail at. Whether it’s sailing across windswept seas with Capitain Hornblower, cooking cherries jubillee for dragons, or creating happily ever afters with three children and a veritable zoo. Then, when the books are done, it’s nice to remember there are also things at which I excel… and to go do them. For now, however, it’s time to return to bed, books, and blissful escapism. Tomorrow is not long distant, and, since I cannot afford another day of shameless lazy indulgence, I am going to embrace this one while I may.