looking around the packed room at last night's Nick Hornby reading, i realized something. some of us just want to be read to. whether it's a link to our childhood when everyone wanted to read to us or a relationship with the oral tradition of story telling, the times before anything was written down and stories were only passed on by being told and retold, some of us are soothed and comforted by a told story and our imaginations sparked by it.

the experience of being passed on a story orally is unparalleled. i remember being read the Lord of the Rings, an voluminous tale, by my parents when reading for myself was still a stiff practice. i remember taking time out of classes on a regular basis in elementary school for story telling. our practitioner at the time was a semi-famous woman who lit a candle before she began and looked and acted much like a kindly old witch. i remember being read The Phantom Tollbooth by a girlfriend on the long drive to Oregon to meet my parents.

and it's not just the receiving of a story that enlightens something innate but the telling of one, too. when Julie and i were breaking up and going through horrible times, i took time out to stop talking about our problems and read from Alice in Wonderland. for a brief moment, it made the world seem much simpler.

listening, laughing to tears, and hearing the words from the author's lips last night was something special. i'd only done it once before: a talk given by Alan Ginsberg that was both mystical and hilarious, and connected me to an entire beat generation. but realizing what it stirred in me, i vowed to make it a more regular practice.