Blackbirds

I spent this past weekend reading.

Alice Hoffman.

She wraps me up in her magicky dream so completely that it takes some time to shake off that fuzzy slowness and scent of honeysuckle.

Since I was very small, books were my primary escape method. Don't get me wrong, I had a perfectly happy childhood. Loving parents, lots of freedom with set and fair boundaries, a sibling playmate and a healthy rivalry. But everyone needs an escape from their reality.

Mine was reading.

Becoming so deeply involved in a book that I would nearly act as the character. Ignoring the world around me. Literally. I wouldn't hear phones ring, people talking to me, television. I would read all night and have to be forced to school, with dark circles under my eyes and my mind still replaying the last few chapters.

Good books I would read several times. I still have some of them, still read some of them. My dog-eared copy of A Wrinkle in Time. A tear-stained hardback copy of Danny, the Champion of the World.

Sometimes I wonder how much I learned from life, and how much I learned from tree pulp and printing ink.