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Two months ago the French government announced the end of “normal life” in response to the pandemic. Today marks the beginning of the end for some confinement measures. These past eight weeks, I was holed up in a small Parisian studio with limited human connection.
I quickly figured avoiding strangers out on their 1-hour-a-day-only walks didn’t cut it out as meaningful interaction. Since I disavow most social media, the void can appear as deafening silence in times such as these (I did WhatsApp and the rare Zoom call with a couple of friends & family).
Long spells of listlessness meant I had time to focus on my relationship with myself and examine the quality of my relationship with others. It also meant I had to rummage in my own creative toolbox for self-sufficiency.
With the gift of hindsight then, I ask myself : “How did I even make it through?”
The answer is books. Without intending to set any reading goals, I finished 8 books in 8 weeks. That’s a book a week but I often read several books at a time, so some of them overlapped.
Books turned out to be magical yet reliable companions. Through them, l travelled far and wide without leaving my tiny apartment. I met new people, real as well as realistic, and read their stirring, funny, and profound word. Words inked black on white: genuine, guileless, gritty. Two-dimensional merely in appearance, each one unlocked a new cosmos. Of those 8, here are 4 of the…
