the literary glutton: moved

for the first time in what seems to be a very long time, i read a book from cover to cover in one day. (well, at least since the husband and i were on vacation in december.)

i didn't mean to, it just happened.

i found the book chocolat in the lending library at work, run by the cross and crusty receptionist whose love of books shows that she is much, much more passionate about a good many things than her churlish demeanor lets on.

i loved the movie. and like all movies that were books before they were screenplays, it was so much better than juliette binoche and johnny depp let on.

and like so many nights as an awkward child, a sulky teenager and a literary pretender/english major, i sacrificed sleep to see what came next, devouring each page, paragraph, word and mind picture with a hunger that could not be satiated by anything other than completion.

a literary glutton i am. there's no other word for it. and as a writer myself, i am ashamed. like eating a ten course meal of rare ingredients and lengthy preparation time in mere minutes, i feel i have insulted the chef by my greed.

but like the gourmand i am, i now sit, sucking on the bits of the story, the energy and glee that i feel wedged in my teeth, feeding my soul. and i feel full. satisfied. delighted. yet still wanting more.

maybe that's why i haven't put a novel together yet. god knows i have plenty of stories within myself, complete fabrications or loosely vailed tales of my own silly life.

can i write it as i would devour it? in hours, not weeks? hardly. i know my vanities, the need to write and rewrite and craft and recraft. but maybe that's the way it needs to start, to spew, to push out the tale like a giraffe gives birth complete with the long drop to the ground that everyone knows is coming except for the baby giraffe.

and yet, would today's day of reading, be as possible and as delightful if it would have been the typical work day? but it wasn't.

many things were different. the train instead of the car and allowing a switching mishap to be the catalyst for more reading time. the subway to the errand of picking up prepared tax papers, again leading to more reading time. reading before bed, prompting the ache for more and the sleeplessness that led to finishing the book – and working against the clock of the failing battery in the laptop for a bit of self-imposed writing.

work was light today, but only in the area of others' demands. briefs were cancelled. meetings postponed. i had the chance to play on some horrific deadlines which do not belong to me. i have tried to own them, but the jobs are not mine and i am technically not responsible for the work. so the ideas come freely. plentifully. much like the way the main character in chocolat has other people's thoughts coming to her.

it's always surprised me how external, yet internal the process of idea generation feels. i do not know where the ideas come from, yet they feel like they've always been with me and were just waiting for me to rouse them with a magic incantation or a kind word. it's the part of my earning a living that feels like a blessing. and a curse, because i can't turn it off. nor do i want to.

the other day, someone at work said that they wished they could just not think. they would just live.

i can't fathom a day like that.

i am present. i am in the moment. i can even empty my mind, thanks to yoga classes. but i have to work at it because the thoughts pour forth whether i want them to or not.

when i was a teenager, the thoughts that bubbled up were not always so nice. whether it was hormones, the stress of trying to be a super-achiever or lack of sleep, i was often depressed. i knew what it was like to feel blue.

over the years, i've gotten quite good at pushing those thoughts aside. i keep it positive because the dark thoughts can drag me right down, into the kind of slump that keeps you wallowing in your own mire for a lot longer than you ought to.

but i find when i'm not busy, when i'm not focused, my mind wanders down that path. not that it's a tempting one. i start to mull could haves, should haves, would haves. what a waste of time.

and maybe that's why i picked up chocolat. some i doubt would classify it as a particularily uplifting book -- there's crime, hatred, bigotry, death, abuse and a whole string of the stuff that is on the news every single day. but i saw plenty of hope in a story of a strong, opinionated women with an ambiguous, but extremely well travelled background. i found strength, principles, ethics, pride, love, friendship, joy, creativity, salvation and a job well done.

i've been struggling with the whole idea of principles and ethics in one of the tasks i've been given. how do you create something that other people can stand behind when you don't know if they share your idealism?

i think i found the answer tonight in chocolat: you don't care and you just do what you need to do. those who see the value in it will partcipate. those who don't, won't. in the end, that's all you can hope for anyway.

now what i need to do is find the answer and discover what the parable is so i can bring the whole thing to life.