WEIRD EVANGELICAL ZEAL

But I’m coming at this differently, as someone persuaded that reading does things — to the brain, heart and spirit — that movies, television, video games and the rest of it cannot.

More on that later. Must be some kind of internal molten energy floating around in me after my long conversation with CandJ as I had one hell of a dream about B2 last night. Epic. It is was not really a nightmare, although I think there was some world-threatening-or-Tom-Cruise-movie danger involved with high tension trips to overcrowded airports, blinking lights, and barely subdued hysteria. I felt all hissy and growly with a fat tail, spitting and making those unearthly noises ... I didn't do that in the dream, but that was the feeling. 

As to events of the dream, well, those are generally hard to recount, but B2 was barreling around in my life, had made some kind of friends or co-opted B1 (which is crazy because the only time they met, B2 was this side of rude to B1), had threatened my living space (which is what happened), and then tried to pass herself off as friendly and sane. There was also a dinner party involved, two small round tables of four people each. Someone at my table had invited Stephen Stills (I just finished reading one of Judy Collin's memoirs, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, so he's on the mind). Evidently, I had a bone to pick with him, too, as I protested him being seated at my table and excused myself as soon as I could. 

So, general high drama, angst, and danger, near enough to wake me up and then thread through subsequent sleeping and dozing. Enough to send me skittering here to write. Mal-aise ... Bad ease ... Uncomfortable.

Another of the larger themes we all discussed was that of home. The short, un-nuanced version of that epiphany was that one of my compulsions to collect things outside of myself is not being "at home" within myself enough. (Trust me, there is much more to it than this.) B2 completely usurped, stomped on, violated, ravaged, and fucked up my home, and a good corner of my sense of self. She was a Godzilla of emotional destruction, relentless, thoughtless, remorseless.

And now I come to consider love and loyalty. And how loyalty to others can really be counter-intuitive to loyalty to oneself. Maybe some loves, some feelings of love are just another addiction. (Here comes Love in the form of an old kitty to say good morning, or, more likely, Where are the Greenies?) I liked the warmth and fun feelings I shared with B2 and prioritize those more highly than I do my own safety, my own "home" within myself. 

I don't know. I might well be rambling here, but I do feel like crying again. And the dreams were very upsetting-unsettling (you choose). Hopefully, I will read this later and it will make more sense ... or perhaps some of you will add some insight.

It's much colder today. I think we are anticipating rain soon. Meanwhile, as I am going down to Manhattan/Brooklyn later to work with Louise (yay!) and to go to the library and also have lunch with my fabulous former workmate Sarah, I want to scurry out to the garage to get in some work on my refinishing project. I do believe the house has been sold so I will be packing up my sorrows and other things to who knows where. But I should work in the woodshop while I have the chance.

And the quote at the top is from a Frank Bruni New York Times article, Read, Kid, Read, books being something else I cannot get enough of. I liked the conclusion: 

That observation brought to mind a moment in “The Fault in Our Stars” when one of the protagonists says that sometimes, “You read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”

Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts in a manner all their own, and I’m convinced that the shattered world has less hope for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it.

And this just came in as I was writing:  The 25 Greatest Homes in Literature.