A lover is like a good book.
Or rather, I should say, a lover OUGHT to be like a good
book.
If it’s an old lover, or book, it should be comfortable,
comforting, but still able to reveal, as you go back to it time and time again,
new layers, unexpected moments, depths and details you’d never suspected might
be there. It should unfold anew, and much though you might have believed that
you knew it, in its unfolding show you more than you’d ever possibly imagined,
teach you things about yourself you’d never suspected, show you things about
itself you would never have guessed.
This is what makes for your favorite books. Or favorite
lovers.
If it’s a new lover, or book, on the other hand, then every
moment of it should be a surprise, a revelation. It should be impossible to
predict as the process unfolds, until it brings you to a place that, when your
experience together began, you could never possibly have foreseen.
This is the thrill of a new, exciting book. Or a new,
exciting lover.
And both, in their time and their place, when they come, are
wonderful things. The old, the new, the comfortable and the thrilling. That
which affirms and celebrates what you always knew about yourself, about the
world, and that which shocks, which shakes you out of your comfort zone, which
takes you to places you never thought might have been possible.
These are the things that life is made of, both in terms of
great literature and great acts of physical love, and each in its place
deserves to be appreciated for all that it is worth.
Because while life is short, it is still more wondrous than
words could ever possibly express, and it demands at every moment to be celebrated.
Because you deserve to be celebrated. Every aspect of you,
every quirk and kink, and to do less is to do yourself a grave disservice.
So find a good book, or a good lover, either old or new, and
throw yourself into life with as much passion as you can muster….
…also, if you leave one splayed out, wide open and face down,
bent over a table, for too long, you risk damaging its spine.
This too is true both of lovers and of books.
Still, there are times when it’s worth that risk; otherwise you
might lose your place…
