Nouveaux (Novel)

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life." ~Helen Exley

I spent a portion of my morning at the library.

This might be one of my favorite locations in the entire world.

Granted, I am a huge fan of expansive fields under perfect blue skies, the whisper of a breeze in my hair as I tuck myself under a tree with a brand-new paperback and a soft blanket.

However, if I had to remain indoors for any extensive period of time, I would rather it be lost among the melodious stacks of our anciently elegant library.

There is something hypnotic about this place.

Almost as if a portal to Narnia exists somewhere among the aromatic books, aching to be discovered by an attentive and observant seeker of knowledge and fantasy.

Today, my fingers reached out and darted from one spine to another...

...as if begging my sensitive fingertips to ascertain if the information to be found inside was worth the moments of my time to read.

And indeed, I found several such volumes...

... exquisite volumes flooded with such words as to intoxicate and overpower me with their beauty and worth.

I have met my match.

I have found my weakness.

Who would have imagined that the feeble scratchings of ink upon a bit of parchment would cause tears to spring to my eyes and my world to be changed forever?

The written word is my weakness.

Be gentle with me, oh poet.

Be cautious with my heart, oh composer...

...for you have woven a spell over me

from which I pray

to never

awaken.

Diary

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. ~James Barrie

Visiting the library is like stepping into another world. Shelves and stacks of books line the room from ceiling to floor...

...the rich aroma of ink and dusty volumes whisper of worlds yet hidden in bindings of leather and paper...

...but yet, between these seemingly innocent pages, is danger and mistrust and anger.

For these books are more than just words...more than stories...more than records of fiction or fact...these are the thoughts of an author laid bare before our eyes.

Their secrets are no more.

For I have not yet met a writer who was able to strip all hint of personal emotion from their work.

In fact, the thing that makes an author great is their ability to step into the pages and let their hearts do the writing.

For it is an unmistakable truth that, for a writer to allow another to read their work is to expose their soul.

It is as if we have opened the pages of our most private diary, held it out to the world and begged them...

..."come and read my soul. Feast your eyes upon my hidden mind. And please...be gentle with me."

This may be why so many of us struggle with allowing the world to read our work. It is nothing if not a terrifying idea for someone else to take something that we have poured our hearts and souls into and bring it out into the light.

Pieces of the writer themselves have become lost among the words. It's more than just a fairytale or a retelling of a historical event. It's part of our story, a scrap of our legacy, wrapped up in these fragile pages.

The work itself might be perishable, but the dreams, hopes, and fears that are represented there are enduring.

So please.

Be gentle.