Reading and Sea

Reading and sea. If you pay attention to them, you will realize that they both have more in common than we realize. In this movement of advancing and retreating, of growing and bursting, of carrying and detaching, we end up learning more about ourselves.

Some books are like beach on a cold day. The water is so cold that we are afraid to get our feet wet – it takes courage to face the challenge. Suddenly, we realize that it is not as freezing as we imagined. We would never have found out if we had not dared to leave our comfort zone.

Some authors hold our hands and lead us to the sea, keeping us comfortable and heated, playing the lifeguard when we need to. The waves shake us so delicately, it’s like being embraced by the water. We feel so light and fluid. The temptation to stay there forever is great, but we can feel the sands on our feet, a reminder that any moment it will be time to go home.

Others lead us to challenge our limits – we are hypnotized by the mermaid's song and we keep going deeper and deeper, not caring whether it is dangerous or not… We want to drown and drink so much salt water until we lose our consciousness, until we reach the last page. We desperately want to be part of those stories, tearing our skin and put ourselves into those characters, even if the salt do burn each cut.

Between drownings and spells, like it or not, once in contact with these narratives, it is very hard not to let them change us. We want the breeze touching our hair and caressing our souls. We want books that make our hearts beat harder, make us feel alive – readings that recharge our energies and relieve us of the harrowing weight of everyday life.

We leave our fragments of skin, hair and energy in the sea that mix with salt and sand. Like all good reading, as we dive into the pages and feel the letters invading us, we are also leaving our marks on the book. We leave the beach, but part of it remains with us. We are not our old ones, we are not the same. Like the sea, we continue to transform and spread our stories around... Until the day we walked in other waters, we let other waves to challenge our structures and the cycle begins again.