I’m every book I never read
And all the questions I learnt to hold.
I’m every book I never read.
My father’s, to begin with.
Historical fiction. Thrillers. And, of course, self-help. How Easy It Is to Learn to Run. The specialist in learning to run from the sofa, while watching war films in black and white.
He never told me about them. I’m finding out now.
By the spines. By the most dog-eared pages. By the corners. By that curious wear only time leaves, when someone goes back to the same place again and again.
I read him through what he read. And it’s the one gaze I’ll never meet again — and that still rewrites me in real time.
There’s another book. On the table. A friend’s. Just arrived.
Since I sent him the proof-of-life photo, he’s asked me everything. The paper weight. The ink. The cover. Is the size appetising? Does the stock sit right?
E v e r y t h i n g. Everything.
Except what I made of it.
What? Surprised? I’m not. Not strange at all. Not in the least.
It seems perfectly normal to me, and I don’t hold it against him, because I do exactly the same.
All of us. We always ask about the paper so we don’t have to ask about the gaze. We circle the question that weighs with something about grammage. We look for confirmation. And, deep down, we pray no one is entirely honest.
There’s another book on the side table. My cousin’s.
It’s been there for months. It’s probably the one I most want to read. And the one I most put off. Not out of laziness.
The opposite.
Because I know who wrote it. Because I know her eye. Because I know the years behind it.
She’s spent half a life training that eye to find places where the rest of us only see streets.
And I think that’s why I don’t want to open it just anyhow. I tell myself I can’t find the moment. That I don’t have the rigour. And it’s true. But not as an excuse — as respect.
The nerve, you’re thinking. My cousin probably too.
My cousin and I meet for a drink and a good long natter all the time. I go with her to her openings. And she never asks whether I’ve started. She gives me rope. She knows it doesn’t mean I love her any less. That I’m a disaster. That I’m hopeless with time.
I suppose that’s what friends are for. And cousins who are friends. To keep your place until you manage to give yourself your own.
Because some books you consume; others inhabit you — even the ones you never began.
And, well. Then there’s the last book.
Mine. In design.
It might be the flop of the century. I’m not after a bestseller. I don’t want to move more units. I don’t want flashbulbs or microphones. I want something dearer: presence.
And I know that’s asking a lot.
It’s not an airport book. It makes you slow down. And it can’t be divided without breaking. Like prime identities.
That’s what it’s about. Physics. Prime identities. Haikus.
Maybe that’s why I feel no vertigo. Well — maybe once we go to print that word will fit me better. But what I feel right now isn’t vertigo. It’s much closer to querencia.
To the chance that, for once, someone might read me without reading me small. Without translating me. Without summarising me. Without keeping one nice line to take home. Or my drawing on the cover.
With my accent. And the place I think from.
Maybe that’s why I still haven’t started my cousin’s book. Because I don’t want to consume it. I want to be present, so it can inhabit me.
I hope mine finds someone willing to do exactly the same.
Lines Aja
Brand Strategist & Verbal Identity Consultant — Las Musas®
cultooruido.com