"Books take you under the skin of life, and into all the layers of the wind. Once you’ve seen that, it’s so hard existing on the ordinary surface. You’ve got to keep reading, to stay in the deep".
Sarah Elwell
What a remarkable way of describing how books can affect you, where they can take you and how they can make you feel. "...and into all the layers of the wind". That stopped me in my tracks and made me wonder about the layers of the wind, and in my mind I could see them!
Every now again I read an article about reading - how it happens and the multiple processes that are at play as we not only translate the typed or written characters on a page, but then transform them into imagined experiences, places, people and events.
Some times my head hurts after I try to really grasp what is going on, and I have to go back and back again to re-read for a proper understanding. In these moments I am grateful that folk like Ms Elwell manage to capture the essence of reading so well, when the intricacies of its process elude me!
Wind in the grass in Tatebayashi, Japan. I can almost see the layers...
Sarah Elwell
What a remarkable way of describing how books can affect you, where they can take you and how they can make you feel. "...and into all the layers of the wind". That stopped me in my tracks and made me wonder about the layers of the wind, and in my mind I could see them!
Every now again I read an article about reading - how it happens and the multiple processes that are at play as we not only translate the typed or written characters on a page, but then transform them into imagined experiences, places, people and events.
Some times my head hurts after I try to really grasp what is going on, and I have to go back and back again to re-read for a proper understanding. In these moments I am grateful that folk like Ms Elwell manage to capture the essence of reading so well, when the intricacies of its process elude me!
Wind in the grass in Tatebayashi, Japan. I can almost see the layers...
As a former special education teacher, I can support your statement that reading is a very complex series of processes in the brain, which just may give you s glimpse of how amazing the human brain really is. "Layers of the wind" - love that phrase...
ReplyDeleteThanks Sharmon - it is almost beyond explanation I think; we can only ever have a sense of it happens and I am forever grateful I learned how to do it. It's a gorgeous phrase isn't it? Sometimes I am sure there are layers...
DeleteI love your Thursday Thoughts!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mo! 'Tis good to sit and have a wee think on a Thursday...
DeleteI love reading Sarah Elwell's words.
ReplyDeleteShe writes beautiful words Trace...
Delete"all the layers of the wind" and "to stay in the deep" - What lovely visions these phrases bring.
ReplyDeleteI've been in Three Pines, just across the Vermont border in Canada most of yesterday and today as I read Louise Penny's newest mystery so your Thursday Thought is quite appropriate.
They are such evocative phrases aren't they J? And how wonderful that you've been visiting and been able stay in the deep for a bit!
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