When your hands fold around covers, the pages fanning before you, the book speaks… without
words. Your senses liven as it is a thing in itself. You see time passed impressed upon the pages and
cover, or shiny new objects. You hear old crisp pages that crackle while new pages whir. You feel the
weight, and maybe a creased spine. You inhale the iconic scent of ink and paper. In defense of the
object, the physical book holds secrets that enrich the world within.
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As we enter the old bookshop, the air silently buzzes with time. Whether books smell of fresh ink or
worn paper, one's olfactory has the longest memory. Candles are made to recreate this particular
alluring scent. Combing the shelves, an index finger grazes worn covers, creased spines proving
someone has been there before you. Thumbing through aged pages, the book chatters while the
reader's eye seeks words gathering groups for meaning. In this warm wood filled shop, books can
endure, rest and await their new home, for there is no hurry.
A tome selected for further discovery. Turning pages, you spy clues as to the book's provenance.
Visual reflections are embedded its experience. The bleeding brown ring on the cover is permanent
proudly showing a reader's use as coaster.
Markings and commentary respond to the work scribbling and scribing along the edges of text.
More in-depth thoughts at the end of each chapter include dates. Blowing life into the pages, they
separate illuminating another's reflections, as experience has been meticulously noted. The inside
front cover telling the object was a gift, the date showing that the book was new at the time. The
name of the receiver, iconic of the era. Houston, we have a name. We now know who first imprinted
their residue on the well-worn read.
Drawings and musings demonstrate play. Readers have spent time with the book and may well
have traveled with it. Or perhaps the hardback was toted to the doctor's waiting room, with best
intentions, too distracted to dive into words. Thermometers and the Rx symbol peppers the page
along with interconnected geometric pencil marks meandering at a chapter's beginning.
Interruption documented. A moment in time recorded.
Miscellaneous objects nested in between pages create a dialogue with the thing itself as well as
subsequent readers. A short grocery shopping list has found home expressing regionality as a
couple of the words are particular to place, maters being one. A newspaper obituary clipping tells of
a moment in time honoring a soul that will remain in the reader's memories and heart. Once sighted
by another, that soul comes alive in the experience, as witnessed, as acknowledged. The last name is
the same as the inside cover. A flower expresses feeling-presence. Its life immortalized as the
delicate petals were so carefully arranged, keeping the obituary company. Read More
