For my fellow quote lovers:

State changes and old books

I’m riding above my emotions all day, making breakfast, making the bed, opening the computer, closing the computer, making dinner, opening the computer again. All I really want is to spend the day under the covers.

I have a sudden image of my birthday weekend this year, with my favorite quotes that David printed and scattered all about, and I pull out a book from the shelf without thinking too much about it. It’s Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings. I speak to the universe in my head, asking for the page I need. And I open to a poem: “An Old Story.” It begins: “I wake in the valley of midnight or three a.m.” It tells of a heart that says, “what you thought you have you do not have.” And of a body that says, “will this pounding ever stop?”

The poem says, There are opportunities in the dark.

It is exactly the message I need. My heart rate slows. I take my 30 seconds for gratitude, and I notice that the tree outside is half green half yellow, right in the middle of changing. Change can stop us in our tracks.  

I am not sure what I believe about why this book-opening trick has worked again. All I know is that it works: I’ll be going about my life on autopilot until it finally occurs to me that I need a state change, and I reach for an old favorite, and whatever page I open to contains something of what I need.

It makes sense, in a way. Even us analyzers can only think our way through so much. Sometimes we need an outside influence. And when we draw on something we love without thinking too much, we tap our subconscious, which knows more than we think we know.

And this is how old, beloved books have saved me from my own thoughts, time and again. It may be something else for you. But when you need a state change most, try it. Put your subconscious to work. Unthink your way to what you didn’t know you needed.