On the Mend

There is a kind of deep sorrow that overcomes me when I finish reading a really good book. It's a sadness that pushes down on my chest and wends its way through my limbs. It makes me feel as though I will never read another book that moves me the way this last one did. Then, surprisingly, I pick up another book that draws me to its very spine and I am reminded again of the sadness. 

Although this is ultimately the way I want every book to make me feel, I recognize how exhausting it would be. After reading a book like that, it often takes me several days, sometimes a week or more, before I can pick up another book. It takes so much energy to invest myself so fully in the characters and writing in such a book, that I feel as though I have run a marathon through mud. 

Oh that every line of prose I wrote could be so well received by others. I long to lead my readers into a deep melancholy with the last sentence of my stories.