Paper in a digital world

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get into digital books.

She did try. She had a Kindle. Two of them, really, if you counted the Kindle app on her phone.

She started at least a dozen books that way.

Every time, she promised herself she would read all the way through. Yet with each swipe across the screen, her nose flared and her lips pursed until she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d toss away the e-reader and go in search of a real book.

A book has pages you can flip.

Not swipe.

Flip.

Paper that’s a little rough against your fingertips. Pages that let you dog-ear the edges. (Don’t listen to the haters. This is the best way to read a book.)

You go on a journey. You spend time together. You watch the pages pass, one by one.

At the end, you’re left with new ideas and a pile of pages weathered by love and time and long introspective pauses.

In the digital world, all of that disappears.