An Unexpected Gift

I just read The Trial, by Franz Kafka, and For Whom The Bell Tolls, by Hemingway - back to back.

It is a dangerous thing to feed the mind nutritious sustenance in that quantity. Somehow I survived.

Crawled out of bed this morning unsure of which book I would choose next. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 books in my queue on the bottom shelf of the end table next to my recliner. A rich store of beauty ranging from fiction to non-fiction to "literature" (see above) covering every topic known to man.

I chose River Dogs, a collection of short stories by Robert Olmstead, a NH native.

I forgot that I even had this book. A few weeks ago I got together for lunch with my co-workers at The Capitol Center, a theater I used to work at until May of 2020 when the pandemic layed me off.

These people are real human beings. Kind, considerate and sensitive. As opposed to the cold-hearted killers I work with at the city job. I am convinced that proximity to the arts is the explanation - if you are into the arts you are by nature a sensitive and caring person.

Many of us are fully vaccinated - we hugged - they asked about Carol, I asked about their families - it felt like therapy to me. I am so starved for sensitivity, for contact with healthy souls. It felt so good.

After lunch I had an hour and a half "to kill" (I hate that expression) before absorbing more radiation. I wandered over to the book store across the street and browsed. Heaven.

I bought three books, River Dogs being one of them. Honestly, the book was in the used section, it cost $3 and it sounded vaguely interesting. It was kind of a one-off.

This morning it super-charged my soul.

My time spent reading in a silent house is perfect time. Nothing can beat it. But the intensity of it varies depending on what I am reading.

This book is a collection of short stories about small lives. People who have little or nothing, people who are struggling, people who are hurting - people for whom living means just surviving.

That kind of stuff just plugs right into my essense because it is so real. I love this book.

Most of us wander through life bewildered, wide-eyed and stunned - "What is that beautiful house? Where does that highway go to? Am I right? Am I wrong? My God! What have I done?"

A writer who can capture that emotion, the overwhelming sensation of a broken spirit - captures my attention.

And gratitude.

From Cody's Story - "Men changed, he knew that. He'd seen it before. He himself had felt it, the feeling of something creeping up on you. The woods were full of men who'd sat down and died, men with a full larder and an income. The more willful hadn't waited for death. They took it to her."

I am not even sure what to take away from those words but I do know that they touched me.

A good feeling on a Sunday morning. Especially as an unexpected gift.