Dear Book
July 27, 2001
7:15 a.m.
Dear Book, As I write this, you are still in your formative stages. If you were a human, maybe you would be early third trimester and Lisa would be getting all kinda puffy and whatnot. But you're a book. So instead you are sitting in two piles on two different desks. One pile is the first two thirds of the story. This is the part of you I've been focusing on for the past couple weeks. I have read these words and moved them around and changed some and thrown some away--an act I hope is akin to washing mutant DNA of the literary sort, purging your inner foundation of weaknesses to keep you from harm. Now I am reading them again ... honing ... polishing. Making them as good as I can. Sometimes when I'm working I think about how you would feel if you were sitting next to me. Are you pleased? Would you be proud of me? Am I doing you right? The second pile is the last part of the story. You are not fully developed in that part. You are, well, you are cranky there--colicky and a bit more than obnoxious. Don't get me wrong. I love you all the more for it and your temper here is not something I won't be able to handle. I look at you now--that pile of paper and yellow and red stickies--and see what you will become. It makes me smile. The stickies are better than ice cream, you know? They tell your future. Would that we all had stickies. I'm sitting in my basement now. I've just finished running through twenty or so pages of that first pile. My brain has been embedded in your story, my fingers feel of that familiar worn sensation they get when they rest on the keyboard. It is quiet. Nothing on the CD. Nothing but your existence in my mind. Maybe, when you get older, you will be important to a lot of people. Maybe you will be read and people will like you and buy you and give you votes or shower you with gushing phrases of delight. Or maybe just a few will do these things. Maybe other people will never even get a chance to see you. The stickies only go so far into your future. This part they leave out. I feel your presence beside me this morning, though. You smell faint like dust. You are warm like a blanket. You make my arms tingle with your familiarity. So while you are here, I wanted to take a moment to tell you that no matter what happens in your future, you've been important to at least one person. For that, I thank you.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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