I have spent the last week or more trying to think of a book that I could say had changed my life – a book that has had such a profound impact it has gone on to influence my decisions and my path… I have not been able to think of one.
My journey with reading and books has not been a straightforward one, and although I am often found thumbing my way through my latest literary purchase, I cannot pinpoint any one book that has held that kind of transformational power in my life. So how can I say one book has changed Lottie Land? It would be the book I put down.
When I was a child I never read, to a point that my mum worried if I could actually read at all – I can only ever remember reading one book when I was little, it was about a Silverback Gorilla, but I have no idea what it was called.
All this changed in my teens when I discovered the fantasy fiction genre – long before the days on Harry Potter I found myself getting lost among the pages of Tolkien, McCaffrey, Lewis, and other authors who held the possibility of transporting me to a far off place, and regularly did so… often on the back of a dragon.
By the time I was in my 20s, and travelling into work on the London tube I was devouring fiction from just about any genre and era – I was officially a reader, and any of my friends would have associated me as such.
This continued through to my adult life.
One of my favourite times to read is when I’m away camping. I love sitting out in the fresh air, with my feet up, getting stuck into a good book, and it was on one of these trips that I discovered the book that would change Lottie Land forever.
The truth is the book I took away camping with in 2008 me was rubbish. I won’t name it as I don’t think it’s fair, but the book was so unbelievably rubbish that I really couldn’t get into it – I quickly lost all interest in the unbelievable characters, and wattery weak storyline. I gave up and put the book down.
It was on that trip that I first learnt to really sit in silence. To be alone with my thoughts, and to journey deeper to become in touch with what was going on inside. Without a book to read I was able to allow myself to turn my mind off from losing myself in a story, and on to just simply enjoying my surroundings and just being.
I’m still a prolific reader. But I’m now also a meditator too, and it’s this that has had the impact on Lottie Land far greater than any book ever could.
