“Books are uniquely portable magic.”

-Stephen King 

With a trip to the mall this past weekend to fulfill some errands on my checklist, I found myself having completed everything on my docket but without a sudden rush to get home. So, naturally, my feet began to move almost subconsciously, and like the world’s most calm yet completely unstoppable magnet, my body was drawn towards the Barnes and Noble bookseller. 

Waking inside is a feeling I’m well acquainted with but will definitely not get sick of. It’s not the cliche expression of waking into somewhere that “feels like home.” It’s the ripe and unbridled feeling of possibility that saturates me when I enter. I look at a stack of books, one shelf containing maybe a hundred titles, and I know that each has the power to completely reshape my thoughts. 

I have never read a book and not been scarred. Some marks fade with time, while others leave impressions so deep they seem to defy laws and only grow over time. Some stories are light-hearted and droll. Others are hard-hitting and uncomfortably thought-provoking.

But I’ve never read a book and not thought about it afterward. Be it only for the first few minutes after I finish or a novel so far-reaching in me that I think about them years past the day I finish the last page, stories make their mark on me– on all of us I think.

That’s why I find it so terrifyingly beautiful to walk around a bookstore. I could read multiple books every day for the rest of my life, and I’d still never have enough existence to finish them all. But it’s less the thought of all the physical books I will never be able to read, but the possibility that there are so many books that could fundamentally change who I am as a person exists and I’ll never get to them.

There is no sort of media out there quite like books in terms of personal reflection. Writing is a beautiful way to access your creativity, but there’s something so inherently intimate about reading someone else’s writing and reacting to it. It’s taking someone else’s work, appreciating it, and letting it fall over you.

When you’re in the moment reading, there’s no purer way of clarity and transportation. It’s being perfectly present in the moment but completely lost in your thoughts.

It’s my own personal way of letting magic into my life.