One flat white, please. I sometimes order food, too; a warm croissant or fruit. I sit down at a table and take out my book from my backpack, the book I packed the previous day. Sometimes, I have two, if I am on the cusp of finishing one of them. I recline back in the chair in which I am sitting, open to the last page I was reading. This page is denoted by a “handmade” bookmark: the part of a letter envelope affixed with postage stamps from a recent magazine I received in the post.
For the next hour or two, I try to focus on my book.
Reading is my Saturday morning ritual.
A few years ago, I started reading books about coffee. I read one after another, reaching over a dozen in the space of a few weeks. I was delighted by a new hobby, and motivated to learn as much as possible. It was the peak of the pandemic. Having time away from screens and to be immersed in an intellectual pursuit that brought me joy was significant. Reading was me time. I read one book after another, noting connections and similarities and novelties between books as I read and learned more about how to make coffee.
I discovered that I enjoyed reading. My experience up until then had been with books that had been assigned to me. I now remember the joy of reading as a child with fondness, except my more recent memories at the time were of school novels: The Great Gatsby, A Streetcar Named Desire. Wonderful works, but also assignments. I learned to analyse prose, an essential skill. But I lost sight of another potentiality when reading: to immerse one’s self in knowledge or story without regard for formal analysis.
On reflection, perhaps I never really knew how a book could make me feel. That is, until I started reading the Before the coffee gets cold series, a fiction series based in a basement coffee shop in Japan. The series is equal parts heartwarming, mysterious, and fascinating. There is elation, wonder, and tragedy. As I read the words, I could see the coffeeshop in the book in my head. I was painting a scene in my mind; where the tables were, where the Ghost sits. I can still picture the cafe now.
Buoyed by a delightful fiction read, I saught out more fiction books. I searched for what I liked: heartwarming stories. Japanese fiction was an anchor, but I found for what I was looking from authors and stories around the world. I occasionally ventured out into different themes, like drama. I felt like a child who had been introduced to a new house. There were so many new rooms to explore; so many books and genres and sub-genres where I could find stories.
The book I was reading this morning was heartwarming: More Tales from the Morisaki Bookshop, the sequel to the original Tales from the Morisaki Bookshop. It is a story of a young woman finding a sense of place in the bookshop carefully tended to by her uncle. The store has been in the family for generations. I enjoy books like this. Books that make me smile; the warmth of the story helps me start my weekend on a good note and heal from any stresses of the week.
I read a few dozen pages a week. This builds up over time. Before I know it, I’m onto the next book. I regularly go to bookstores to seek new books to put on my bookshelf at home. Then, when I am coming to the end of a book, I look at my shelf and choose one that I am going to read next. I like to have a few choices so I can find a title that fits how I am feeling or the genre I want to explore next.
When I read on Saturday mornings, I like to be lost in stories. I sometimes pause to look up and think about what I have read. What does this story mean to me? To what extent am I like this character? I look at the use of imagery and narrative occasionally, too, eager to soak up techniques that could be used in my writing praxis. In reading, I find a place to rest and think. I can be without making anything, and therein continue to discover and mould who I am and who I could be, separate from what I make.
This is my entry to the August IndieWeb Carnival. Thank you to Steve for hosting this month!
