I walked up to the mat, gripping the branch that kept my book intact, and I could feel even then the adrenaline rushing. Ignoring the almost flooding circulating of blood, I calmly placed the book down onto the mat and took my shoes of to begin 'the ritual'. Once able to step onto the mat, I hung the book (the shrine) on the wall and begun to make words with the ball of string that I had left in my ceramic bowl. "READ ME" is what I wrote, as a message to those around me. This was the message I would leave with them before my final act of removing all my jewelry, taking back my shoes and walking away.
I performed in a ritualistic manner to understand my grandfather's religious practices (of praying five times a day) by creating my own sense of spirituality. I've been feeling spiritually empty in a conventional sense, but it struck me that maybe my passion to make was of the same valor as my grandfather's passion to pray. We both live in a way that we find fulfilling, but since each individual's purpose is so different from one another it is easy to misunderstand what the other is trying to achieve. The book touches on this as well as the nature of books and of communication. It reads:
What do you expect out of a book? Should it stay in its nice rectangular frame with the words all nicely in a line? Should it be bound in order ? First they meet, then fall in love, then face an obstacle, get over it, the end? If everything is shown in sequence would it help you better understand the story? Better understand me? better understand life? books? literature? romance?
How about my book opens out like an accordion? You'd have to read it outside because the pages would go on and on.. To read it, you'd have to open it entirely and then run all the way back to where you started, but by that time you'd have become so curious that you would begin to read it from finish to start. That's okay, too.
What if I post my words on billboards all across the nation? You'd read the first chapter on your way to work and, without realizing, miss your exit and a dozen after it just to see what happens next. Not personal enough?
How about I whisper my life story into your ear as you make love to me? I can tell you that everything just got "harder and harder" and "that's it!" Too close?
Okay, then. I'll just wait until the end of my life to sum up one moral. I can turn to all the major events in my life like the flashbacks in movies and fix all the things of which I'm ashamed. Then the people of the future can remember me as first being in the news, then in biographies, then in encyclopedias, then described in one sentence, one word or not at all.
Instead of that, how about I make this book in the likes of a jigsaw puzzle? I can chop up the words for you to piece together. If you give up, you can create your own story, because you were going to anyway.
