How I Read Aloud, 5

       When others are asked to read aloud in front of a group and do have time to prepare a passage, I find the usual response based on the evidence is “This is a piece of cake if all I have to do is read it aloud.  I’ll just look it over a couple of times, and that’s it.  After all, it’s words, and I can read.”
 
       But whether there’s time to prepare in advance or not, the last assumption I make about a sheaf of language is that it’s words!

       The words are only pointing through to other things which are distinctly NOT words, namely some kind of experience: textures, sounds, images, attitudes, desires, fears, aspirations, tenderness, vulnerability, hate, awe, doubt, wonderment, affirmation, the grit and gristle and marvel of life, our own life.  We read this page with our own existence--up to this moment in living.  The last thing this page is--chronologically as well as in importance--is words!