Hello readers!
I hope you have all had a good start to your summers so far. Mine has started out great. I just got home from a week at the beach and boy was it perfect! Beautiful weather, perfect waves, and best of all, plenty of time to catch up on some reading. I did a lot of traveling while sitting in my beach chair.
And thinking about traveling, I am reminded of a quote I found recently by Jean Rhys:
"Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere."
I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with her. When I lose myself in the pages of a book I will often be swept away by the beautiful words and story and, in some cases, lose my sense of reality. Some of the books I have read have taken me as far away as Russia, and as close to home as right here in the United States, one book even taking place a few miles from my hometown. Through these books, I feel as if I know the locations as well as my own home.
You know the saying "home is where the heart is." Well, I think that as readers, we often leave a piece of our hearts in every book we read and fall in love with (I say that because there are often books that just don't tug at your heart like others do, at least not for me). So, a bit of home can be found in every story that we read, every land we traverse, from Narnia to Terabithia, to the Inkworld to medieval Europe, to outer space even. There is no limit to the places that books can take you if you are willing to let them sweep you away.
A reader can travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles across the world, through the ages, across dimensions without even leaving her chair or bed or wherever she likes to curl up with a book. And once she is there, as long as she stays, however short or long, both physically reading and daydreaming about it, that is her home. It's where she is happiest, where she can be who she wants to be, live a little more adventurous than her current physical life may allow. She can travel to places she has only dreamed about seeing, or even places she never even imagined existed.
A book can be a magical thing. It can be a time machine, a cross-dimensional transport, a teleport, all these and more (for my Whovian readers, think TARDIS). You can be a permanent or temporary citizen of whatever world you choose to travel to by book, for as long as you choose. And when you do decide to leave, no matter how attached you become to the world, if you loved it enough to invest your heart, you will leave a piece there, and you will always find a home in that world. Any reader can testify to this. Once you leave a world or worlds behind and find yourself tired and worn out or just lonesome, you will discover you have a longing for home; you just have to find a book, sit down, and open it. That's all you have to do and you will be swept away once more on an adventure you'll not soon forget.
This past week, I took four vacations. I traveled to the beach, and from there I went to the Beast's castle, read a certain fairy tale from a stepsister's point of view (an interesting read, I may write on it later), and then ended in Renaissance Italy. All of these adventures were experienced in one place, without me hopping on an airplane. So, in a way, I had an extensive vacation without spending a whole lot of money. Just a library card.
That's my thoughts on traveling with books as your guide. What have been your experiences? I want to know!
Happy reading and traveling!
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