Glue: A story about books and meaningful relationships

Books look like flat pieces of wood or small boxes. The impression books give us is the opposite of what they are. A book’s appearance is predictable and measurable. In other words, you can know the number of pages, the width, length, and weight of the book. On the other hand, its purpose of communicating through language is unmeasurable. The enchantment begins when you open its cover. Once the book is open, it doubles its size. This expansion invites you to start reading. Engaging books metaphorically disappear off your hands.

Book lovers are ubiquitous. Readers come in all varieties, but they tend to have many things in common. They love sharing their love for books. They are curious about what other people read and are delighted by having conversations about books.

All books have a specific feel to them, odor, and a color that accompanies you throughout the reading experience. However, that is the smell you perceive when you pause from reading or put the book down for a moment. The physical object grounds you. But its language takes you to places you have never been before.

Why do we love books? There are many reasons. Paradoxically, books help people express themselves. They can better articulate what they think and what they want to say. Readers sometimes become writers. Writers always start as readers. They start writing what the books leave out. Books end, there is always a final word. But language and human communication are endless.

The spine of a book is an appropriate analogy for how books connect ideas and different things. A book connects the “square” with the shapeless. The finite or materiality with the infinite or immateriality of ideas. The written with the spoken. Books are a metaphor for the body and soul.

Books are mediums that are easy to handle, but only when you are not reading them! Once you begin reading a good book, they become quite challenging to handle. Its message enters your mind and takes over your thoughts and your behavior. Books are the quintessential pandora’s box. The next time you open a book, remember that you are opening a box. Books look like boxes, and ironically that is what they are.

I don’t remember the first book I read or the first book someone read to me. I don’t recall when I started to enjoy reading or even buying books. I remember in high school reading Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose.” A friend of mine mentioned that the protagonist smoked dried leaves he found on the road and used reading glasses. As a story that took place in the Middle Ages, I found this very intriguing. I wanted to know more. I read it as fast as I could to find out more about this enigmatic character. Another character in the novel is an enormous library. Since then, books about libraries have always fascinated me. The mysteries in the book kept me stuck to its pages for hours.

When we think “reading,” we think of the eye. In other words, we feel it is a visual activity. But our hands play a vital role as well. We need our hands to turn the pages. Otherwise, the eye comes to an abrupt stop at the bottom of the page. My hands enjoy touching all types of books: paperback books, newspaper quality paper, the thick and shiny paper used for high definition colored images. My hands have touched the handmade paper or paper made out of recycled fibers.

My hands, naturally, have also touched other things, as well as other people. People like gentle and kind contact. Babies, from the moment they are born, need to be held. Holding and caressing my daughter has been the highlight of my hands’ experience. She is so alive, pure, innocent, and genuine. Holding my daughter feels like touching my whole life. Present, past, and future. How? You ask. It is the moment you give up low freedom for high freedom. You sacrifice your ordinary desires for the needs of another human being. That is how it feels to be in love.

When my daughter was born, the nurse asked me to put my hands on her to warm her up. But my hands were freezing. I was nervous, excited, and the room was cold. The first thing that they asked me to do for her and I felt incapable of doing it successfully. At the same time, I felt like touching such a delicate baby might hurt her. We have learned not to manipulate valuable things if we do not know how, as in works of art at a museum. In front of me was the most beautiful and precious being I had ever seen, and my hands foolishly were reluctant to touch and ruin everything.

The hands of a father. The hands that the baby will need to warm her up. The nurse walks away. I take a deep breath and hope the infant warmer lamp is enough to raise her body temperature. Soon all this will change. She would turn into honey and my hands into gentle honey-loving bees. I always want to hug, caress, and take care of my beautiful little child.

It was early June when we noticed a rash on our daughter’s face. That same day she ate an egg yolk to eat for the first time. We immediately called the pediatrician. A brief video-conference confirmed an allergic reaction. Soon after that, I am with my daughter outside the emergency room. In my hands is where I feel my daughters are the safest. Our hands are ideally always working to improve the lives of others.

As I turned the pages of the book, I feel my daughter climbing up my lap. Now, she is attentive to what we are looking at on the pages of the book. My hands, her eyes, and our book are a harmonious combination. We are connecting through the stories we read. She turns a few pages at once. She is not bothered by the fact that she skipped a chunk of the story. She is mesmerized by the illustrations, and I am fascinated by how she uses her little hands to turn the pages.