precious

I like to read. I always have. The fact that at one time I had more books than clothes says a lot about that. Things have changed now. I have more bags than I have books, more shoes than I have bags, more clothes than I have shoes, more material than I can ever need. I crib sometimes about how reading is a dying passion..in me, in kids today, in the world. But somehow I still want to believe that it would still be something my kids would turn to after an exceptionally hard day.

I saw the movie Precious today, a movie as disturbing as they can make. I clutched my comforter every time the girl's mother yelled at her. And shut my eyes tight when she hurled that vase at her back. I almost cried during the last scene. The girl conjured up beautiful, happy images in her mind every time something bad would happen to her. She'd distance herself from the pain and suffering mentally, believing that this was not how the world was supposed to be and thats why there is always a next day. The fairy-tale she wrote for a class report was about a beautiful princess who lived in her own big bubble under the sea. How can it not break your heart, when she writes 'Why me?' on a page.

The one thing that made her believe that things can get better was that if her kids could read and write and be literate and then happy. She wrote every emotion that she felt even when her world was falling apart. She read through her misery so that one day she could read to her child.

I always thought saying "Books are your best friends" is the most meaningless thing any library can have posted on their walls. I realize now how much it means to someone who needs a friend. And that gives me hope.