Transported

I just got out of jury duty -- was thankfully NOT chosen to sit on the panel, whew.  But, it took a few hours before I was let go from that damp, rickety, old building with the sickly florescent lights.  Plus, I had to walk through two blocks of cold, stormy weather outside to get there.

But something magical happened when I got inside the court house and settled in.  I opened up a book.  Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers, a book I've read twice before, at least.  When I opened to the chapter I'd left off the night before, I stepped foot into a new place.  A warm, cozy world in Cornwall, the coast of England.  With sandy beaches and pristine skies and warm winds.  And people having picnics and sharing memories and laughter.  I was there.  I wasn't in a musty court room, waiting to hear my fate, but across the globe, on another continent, in another time.

Ever since I was a child, I've been attracted to the idea of books -- the places they can take me, the things they can tell me.  And I'm so glad that, even as an adult, that magic never fades.  That I can still take a book with me anywhere I go, and be transported.  Escape into another world.  It's also why I love to write.  I get to create those places, those characters.  Immerse myself into a different place or time.  There's no thrill quite like it.

I believe it was Stephen King who called books a sort of "uniquely portable magic."  I think he's entirely correct.