A little autumnal cleaning spree led to the discovery of a browning, old book, and a ziploc bag full of jigsaw puzzle pieces.
A sniff is worth at least 500 words
If you knew me in my youth, you can attest to my once insatiable thirst for reading. I had the kind of focus that would let me lose track of my surroundings entirely; reading a 500-600 page book in a couple of days was child’s play (quite literally). With a borderline addiction to TV shows that I developed while I was in college, I have struggled to truly be that person again.
But one thing that hasn’t changed, is the way the smell of an old book makes me feel. As I turned to the inside cover of The Healing Knife by George Sava, published circa 1978, I felt that magnetic allure in the pit of my stomach. Akin to petrichor, the term bibliosma coined by one Dr. Oliver Tearle, captures the essence of this otherwise indescribable feeling. While I admit I might have inhaled some long gathered dust that led to an evening of clogged sinuses, it was nigh impossible to not stop and sniff the pages of the book. I can’t say if it was just the odour or if the fact that this was once my grandfather’s book got to me, but I felt compelled to read it – for the first time in a long time.
You know how we’re so attuned to ‘not wasting time’ that most of us rely on recommendations from friends or online reviews to determine what we watch next? And sometimes that extends to the bibliosphere, right? In that moment when I picked up the book, all I wanted was to experience how my grandfather might have felt reading it, and what it would have meant to see the world unfold in front of his eyes in a way that his then limited exposure would not have otherwise allowed. I mean, for a man who had lived most of his life in Chennai, the travails of a White Army man trying to become a surgeon while traipsing across Europe would have been fantastical!
All in all, I read about a third of the book before having to resume cleaning, but I look forward to writing a review on the biography soon.
If you can’t see where you’re going, go anyway
As I go through a journey of discovery and self-healing, I often find myself looking for familiar sensations of calm from my childhood. As is probably the brain’s way of seeking safety, I seek the solace of days spent with my parents in almost complete silence. And one of our favourite activities to do together was solving jigsaw puzzles. I finished a 1000 piece puzzle (well, 999 if you don’t count the missing piece because let’s face it, you can’t actually count it), of Kinkaku-ji – a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, by myself a few months ago. Suffice to say I felt really good.
During the fated cleaning, I came across a ziploc bag filled with puzzle pieces. And once again, I felt I had to complete it. The twist in the tale? I have no idea what it’s supposed to look like when completed. My father says that we have finished it before but neither of us actually remembers.
I have now embarked on a mission of deduction and persistence. And I’m curious to see how far I can get without knowing where I’m going. In case it isn’t abundantly clear, I’m treating this jigsaw puzzle as a metaphor for my own life.
The pieces will come together, and I will be whole once again.
TTFN! Ta Ta For Now!
Chronicles of the Twiggy 