It was the last day of kindergarten, and we were allowed to bring the unused supplies that we had purchased at the beginning of the year home with us. It was a light brown gum eraser, never used. It's edges were perfectly square, the shape of it rectangular. It was perfect, it was beautiful, and I was in love with it.
My father drove me home that day. Full of joy I said to him, "Look at this gum eraser."
"A gum eraser!" he exclaimed, sinking his teeth into it. I cried and cried.
When I buy a new book, if the quality of the paper and its formatting is good, I am awed by the perfection of its pages. The crisp angle of its corners is my delight. I am loathe to do anything that would mar the perfection of its cover.
After a book has been read, if its pages have become creased, its spine bent, or there are paper lines across its cover, a different sort of bedraggled beauty is revealed. Books that have been read by many have a different beauty of their own. Use is a good thing, creases and lines a mark of honor, because it means that an object's purposes have been fulfilled.
There is little worse than purposes unfulfilled.
1 comment:
I REALLY enjoyed that post. I'm sorry our father has a strange, insensitive sense of humor. =)
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