Still A Dreamer

There’s always something a bit sad about finishing a book. Maybe the word is empty. For so many pages we’ve been engrossed in others’ lives, an adventure, an intimate voyage through the eyes of another … the story reaches its peak then twists, turns, slips into its resolution. The last page. And it’s done.  Sigh. Can’t there be more? (At least for the really good books.)

I recently finished Green Angel by Alice Hoffman, a MG novel that I came across while buying Christmas gifts in a local town’s bookstore. I like Alice Hoffman’s writing, and this was about Green, a 15 year old girl, a tragedy, guilt, isolation, survival, and ultimately redemption through love. How could it go wrong? It didn’t disappoint. Both magical and moody, Green Angel drew me in. But all too soon it was over.

In between books, I mentally, if not physically, pace. It’s a restless time. I survey the books I currently have on hand, waiting to be read. Plenty to choose from, including the other book I’d purchased at the same time in the Clinton Bookstore. But I’m not quite ready for that one. I roam from bookcase to bookcase, perusing those waiting to be opened, considering some rereads, then returning to books already begun and put aside for one reason or another. Where is the inner gauge pointing? Fiction? Non-fiction? Indecision.

Fast forward to a stop at my local library to try and find some reference material for an illustration I’ll need to start. There, among some book jackets featured in a display, a word jumps out – Skellig. I know Skellig. It’s a song from a favorite Loreena McKennitt CD, The Book of Secrets. I ask the librarian about this, and she assures me they are not related. Skellig the book is an MG novel by David Almond – hawk or owl feathers are in the cover illustration, and the back cover asks “Man, bird or angel? Who or what is Skellig?”

The time in between books is over.