I didn’t carry too many books when I went to live in Barcelona, seven long years ago. There were a couple of psychology books I knew I’d need, a novel or two I was planning to read to kill time, and the books I wanted to have near me when I started to feel sad, afraid or insecure.
Among them, I carried Lin Yutang’s The Importance of Living and The Importance of Understanding. And they helped a lot to find a way through the maze that was my life then. Once in a while, I would read them slowly and ponder over a single phrase for hours. And the world seemed brighter and deeper than before; and the shadows that used to haunt me opened to reveal a belly full of magic, bizarre things.
(Magic, I believe, is always a little bizarre. But then, isn’t the world full of magic?)
Even now, ten years after I borrowed them from my dad -even now, every time I open them I feel happy to the point of tears.
That, I hope, will always happen.
