I’ve just been to the library. As a child, this was where I found my solace, my nourishment and my escape. Without a father and with an absent mother, I would spend hours wandering between the shelves, the smell of old books pervading my nostrils and the silence strangely comforting. Without the distraction of television and well before the advent of social media and technology, books ( and the occasional film ) were the only means of escaping into a world of fantasy . Through reading and books I learned how to numb myself , to remove myself from reality and to enter into another world, the world of story-telling. It meant that I never had to deal with my own situation and my social isolation enabled me to indulge in this fulfilling pastime. Growing up in South Africa as I did, I wasn’t introduced to the further numbing effects of TV until I was in my late teens and sadly, this caused the demise of my previously voracious reading appetite. Television, like technology is no bad thing provided one uses it as a means of educating oneself or simply to unwind at times. It becomes toxic when it becomes a necessity or so much part of one’s daily existence that there is seldom a day that it isn’t in use. For me, it is bound up with my eating rituals and the two go hand in hand. This was also part and parcel of my earlier reading addiction because I would be secretly eating in my bedroom whilst devouring my latest book.
Despite still going to the library and borrowing copious books, I seldom read them. They sit in a bookshelf and nearly every time I borrow a batch, I renew them over and over again until I am forced to return them because the library requires them back. I don’t know why I bother except that the ritual of visiting a library and going through the motions still brings me a smidgeon of comfort. I can almost see myself as a lonely little girl and I have mixed feelings of pity and nostalgia.
Some of the books I choose always pertain to health, eating or related psychological issues around lifestyle and diet. Writing about it here is definitely serving to draw my attention to my actions and this is a good thing – I think? I hope I am not using it as a smokescreen to stop me from actually doing something practical and realistic to change my life choices.
