absolutely loving tipping the velvet. moved me to tears.
how my call, my longing, to transcend the mundane has echoed in the chambers of my heart, its empty chasm begging to be filled by a holy water that I’d not known yet —
yes, spiritual living has often satiated the hunger and quenched the thirst —
but never did I adequately realize that the feeling of “there has to be something more” could be met through literature — through words on a page, one is cultured, one becomes more worldly, one learns of other ways of living, one learns of higher potentials — yes, the desperate desire to beautify this reality, to vivify this world, a black and white coloring book to be filled in with every known shade, with each of their respective derivatives, this can be met through the vicarious living of literature.
and there is a certain freedom from the chains of selfhood, of our own perceived sense of identity, when we are immersed in a story — I think whether we consciously realize it, on some deep level, we identify with perhaps the protagonist, or some other character with a deep resonance into our soul, or many or some or all of them — and in this identification is freedom from the normal limitations we place upon ourselves, perhaps intrinsic with our sense of self. What is this freedom but transcendence?
Yes, life has felt so much more solid and dense than I am used to, lately — perhaps the Peter Pan syndrome I’ve known for so long is a fear of the confinement of when cold and hard reality becomes too cold and hard, when the water I know reality to be becomes like ice, cryogenically containing the inner child —
what if I can satiate the call to transcend simply through literature, to keep a foot anchored in reality and tend to my work, while transcending and finding freedom in the supplemented imagination that literature is?
I can, and I am, and my heart rejoices with abundant gratitude for this gift that literature is, and I also marvel at the gifts of the authors who bring them into being — I cannot imagine the talent that goes behind crafting such works, I cannot imagine the power wielded by these wordsmiths, if only they knew how deeply they moved me, if only they know that when word met paper for them, my world was turned upside down, if only they knew how badly I want to thank them. If only they knew the freedom their vision makes me feel.
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 