It seems more that as I spend time alone, the importance of ritualisation increases. I find meaning and beauty in the ritual or walking to work and finding an espresso that keeps me company on the subway ride to WTC. I find meaning in walking into a bookshop to hear the beauty of the human spirit caught up in the pages of books, my history, hopes and disturbances lining the shelves. That ritual of running your hands over the spins of the books and wondering who and how and why, that is ethereal and grounding all at once.

And the thing that rocks my boat is finding a first page of a book that reaches out and tugs you in, compels you to want more in life, to want to express more, be more. Here is the first paragraph that took me in this morning.

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren’t very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a different life from mine, and from the life you’ve had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life.”

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

Categories: Books, New York, Religion