My safe place.

Someone asked me: ‘Do you have your safe haven? Where is it?’

I’ve been thinking about it lately. Where is my safe place?! For some people- it’s their home, for others- the arms of their beloved ones. I won’t say, I don’t feel safe in the arms of the person I love the most in this world, but this is a different kind of feeling safe.

When I started reading over 20 years ago, I was a little girl. I didn’t really have friends, because I’ve always been some kind of a stranger. I was looking desperately for this feeling of being safe or maybe for a place, I was looking for anything like this.

Suddenly, I found this place, where I could enjoy and cherish this feeling of being free.

It wasn’t only a physical place, but the world, I was stepping into.

It was a library.

This is one of my best memory from my childhood. My dad used to read a lot. We were going there together. I was looking for my books, he was looking for his.

We had this bookish connection. I didn’t have it with anybody else from my family. We were the only book lovers in our whole family. I really cherished this moment of excitement, on our way to the library.

I loved to drown into this world, where there were only books and me. I can honestly say that I could feel, how the smell of old books surrounded me with its arms. I was feeling so secure and safe. In this moment I realized that nothing or no one else in this world, can give me that kind of feeling.

For a few years, when the hard times came to my life, I lost it. I couldn’t read,

I couldn’t write, I couldn’t create. I’ve been feeling so empty. Something was missing. It was like I lost a sight for some time. I knew, I am missing something very much, but I didn’t know what. When we are walking through the dark path, all we need in this moment is to see a light, even the smallest one.

That smallest light gave me Ernest Hemingway, when I reminded myself what he once said about books. That was my moment of clarity, when I remembered his words: “ There is no friend, as loyal as a book”. He was right, I got my hope back.

I came back to my loyal friends and I felt this feeling of being safe again.

I was saved by the power of words again and suddenly the girl with the books became the woman writing them.

#CoverMe

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