there is a certain comfort to be found in the corners of a bookstore – more specifically, the Popular in Leisure Mall. while these days i prefer to frequent Borders, Kinokuniya or MPH (in that order), that particular Popular branch has struck a chord with me. when i was much younger, my family would go clothes shopping or grocery shopping or run errands, and Popular would babysit me for hours at a stretch. i read anything and everything (although i suppose back then, my anything and everything was Doraemon comics, Enid Blyton novels and the Sweet Valley books – oh! Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, how i miss you so). i have always been a reader. this is interesting, because none of my family members read that much – not my parents, or my sisters, or my relatives. in fact, they don’t read that much at all. i mean, my love for Shakespeare originated partly from my dad, who reads stuff like To Kill A Mockingbird and really fascinating old Chinese autobiographies – but that’s about it.
on the other hand, i devour everything that comes my way.
my love for reading stems from the fact that i suffer from Middle Child Syndrome (i’m telling you, it actually exists) – i’m not one of those people who reminisce about their childhood, simply because i didn’t have all that awesome a childhood. sandwiched between a “smarter elder sister” and a newborn baby sister, i became bitter at the age of five. can you believe it? i don’t quite understand why people miss being kids, anyway – what do you even remember of it? well, anyhow, i’m sure i didn’t make things any easier for my family – i was such an angry, closed-off, overcompetitive child. i was years more mature than kids my own age. maybe because i was so independent so young, i escaped into books instead.
people who read the things i write say i have a real talent; at the very least, they tell me i should never give up writing.
i don’t know about the talent thing; but i’m thinking that my reading probably has something to do with that. writing isn’t just writing, you know. i think most people picture writers just sitting down with a paper and a pen, or a laptop, chain-smoking cigarettes and having coffee-stained teeth – and that the words just flow. no. sometimes the words don’t just flow. i think i’ve been suffering from writer’s block for about three years now. writing is an acquired talent – some writers i know are born with a talent for storytelling (at the end of it, writing is really just 90% storytelling), while others work at it. that’s why there are schools, universities for creative writing, journalism students. writing, to me, is about style. it’s about experience. it’s about connecting with other people, through words. it’s a creative process; it takes a lot out of a good writer.
blogging, on the other hand. blogging is different.
… look at how i digress.
so, i spent a large part of my day being alone. i drove over to the mall without even bothering with a shower, walked around aimlessly for about half an hour, and then all of a sudden i found myself in the fiction racks of Popular. the thing that irks me the most about Popular is that their books are mostly wrapped – which i suppose is nice for buyers to know that their books are brand spanking new – but then again, who buys books without reading the first few pages beforehand? as it happens, i unearthed an unwrapped Jodi Picoult’s latest delivery, ‘Sing You Home’. i then promptly sat down on the floor, leaned back against the rack, and started reading. i sat there for two whole hours, enough to read half the book – about 200 pages. at some point i just decided i didn’t want to finish the book after all, and that it wasn’t really fair anyways to read for free – and that it was time to return to real life, away from Max and Zoe’s infertility issues that were driving their marriage apart, Max’s relapse into alcoholism, and Zoe and Vanessa’s budding lesbian relationship.
the thing about books – the characters always have so much crap going for them. in comparison, my current troubles are really nothing at all.
i left Popular today, feeling if not happier, then much calmer.
i walked in the rain towards my car. i took the slowest drive home. and then i joined my mother and sister for dinner with some of our relatives.
it’s funny how some things work out and some things don’t – but i guess at the end of the day, i have much less to complain about than Max, Zoe and Vanessa.
how are you feeling today?
