oh, fiction: thank goodness

Someone whom you may know, someone who shall remain nameless, used to criticize my reading -- I was much more interested, too interested it has been said, in what was happening in books, lacking in attention for what was really happening in front of my nose.  I countered -- in my head, because in those days I didn't dare say things out loud -- that indeed I was much more interested, blessedly too interested, in what was happening in books precisely BECAUSE OF what was happening in front of my nose.  I could start and stop the book-story, enter and re-enter that book-reality, at will. Where over other things, admittedly, I did not exercise much, if any, control.

And so it is today.

I'm exhausted from the weekend, lacking in stamina for the pursuits that amuse my friends, a bit green around the gills from fatigue, a migraine closing in.  I was in a lot of pain last night from my left hip, a casualty of an overly optimistic yoga session this weekend, a two-hour hike through slushy, gorgeous Blackwood Canyon at Lake Tahoe, and because I stubbornly refused to swallow more pills. I lasted three hours at my job this morning, felt grouchy with everyone in every interaction and suddenly knew it was time to pack it in.  So I came back here and slept for 1 1/2 hours.

But first I read.

Since January 1 of this year, I've been reading one non-fiction after another.  First I finished Quiet by Susan Cain, and then got to within 60 pages of the end of Martha Beck's new book, then started on the next bookclub book, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.  Guess what?  They're all great, but guess what?  They're all non-fiction.

I need some escape.  I need some fiction.

So before the very uncharacteristic nap this afternoon, I started The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht.  From this very first line, hooked, deep:

In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and takes me to see the tigers.

For nearly two hours of daylight, I slept, puppy cozy at my side, though not straight through. I kept waking up and wishing to reach for the book, to find out what comes after page 35, after 60, into the 200s, but I forced myself to remain curled on my side, glasses off, no book.  Now I am finally out of bed, cup of tea, nursing this headache and getting ready to dive back in.

In all that's happening out there in the world, I will never know 100% of anyone else's truth but my own, and even that sometimes eludes and surprises me.  What happens in other places, under the surfaces of things, remains largely inscrutable to me.  I may never know if life exists on other planets or be able to see what others see when they close their eyes and dream, let alone understand what motivates people I know to potentially troubling acts.  But with a book, with this book right now, I can keep my eyes wide open and venture and drift into a truth I can hold between my hands, letting the rest beyond just slip away.  

This is a fiction, a fabrication, that I crave.  The rest, it is really true (you were right), not so much.

Feeling so grateful right now to all of the writers in my long life of reading, strangers to me mostly, who've given me this sweet gift, let me slip gracefully into the story and find happiness in the pages of a book.  Oh, fiction: thank goodness.  Yes. Delight.

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