Of all the places in the world, I think that there is no place that I’d rather be in this moment than sitting here with cup of, now cold, coffee, surrounded by original photographs of birds by Aaron Zacharias at a quaint coffee shop a few steps from my front door. I don’t know what it is that I love so much about sitting here, but I love it. I love the smell and the sound of white noise as people type and chat and laugh – many with computers, some just staring off into space, some warming their hands on a hot beverage.

Sitting next to me is a soft cover copy of Charles Dickens’ most loved novel David Copperfield. I have been very work centred for the last year, and my most recent role for acting class involves a trio of girls having fun (at least in the beginning of the scene). It was a bit of shock to me when I realized that the reason I was having so much trouble with this scene was because I had sort-of (how to put this delicately) forgotten how to have fun. Anyone else have this problem? I discovered that the root of this problem was that somehow I had lost the passion, the joy for what I do. As I a child I was absolutely obsessed with story, but over the last year I have sort-of turned away from my beloved fiction and instead consumed mostly non-fiction… all mostly on the subject of self-help. Good grief. Over the last month, I have fallen into a very dangerous frame-of-mind of taking my work and my life extremely seriously.

Last week I perused my bookshelf looking for my next book, and my eyes fell on my shelf of untouched classics. I picked up Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) first, before David Copperfield caught my eye. I opened the cover of Dickens’ classic and quickly read the preface written by the author:

“I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. ”

…

“It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if her were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever.”

…

“I cannot close this Volume more agreeably to myself, than with a hopeful glance towards the time when I shall again put forth my two green leaves once a month and with a faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these leaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy.”

There was something about the passion with which Dickens’ spoke about his story that sparked my interest, and as I read I’m conscious of clutching the book tightly to my chest between intervals as if it were my own child. His passion awakened a passion within myself for story, and at the same time somehow awakened a little bit of the inner child in me as I affectionately stroke the books cover as it sits beside me.

Reading this preface allowed me to appreciate the joy with which Dickens’ played with words and created these fully layered characters. I realized that I have this same joy.

Since making this realization I have, without guilt, curled up with a book and read for pleasure for two precious hours, played air guitar in my living room, and meditated with a smile on my balcony one beautiful sunny morning.

I am excited to bring this freshly uncovered passion to my work in class and beyond. Thank you, Charles Dickens, for reminding me of this love.