When you read, is it just the place of the book and the characters who occupy your mind? Or is it stray images or memories or anything else instead of what's inside the book?
For many years, in my teens, no matter what I read, I was always back in the large field that ringed the back of Riverside Elementary in Coral Springs, Florida, with part of the back kickball field bordering the basketball court. In my mind, I always found myself walking around that field, for no apparent reason.
Last January, something strange to me: I spent some hours of two consecutive days reading "Two Days in June: Kennedy and the 48 Hours that Made History" by Andrew Cohen. Where I live right now in Henderson, Nevada, in this apartment complex I'll be glad to move out of next month, I walk the dogs across the street amidst those more isolated buildings of the complex because there's more tree life over there, more arcing branches, more peaceful.
There's a section of sidewalk next to two apartments that overlooks the neglected tennis court, after the grassy circle with trees firmly planted at certain points, which is where I like to walk the dogs because it's truly private. There are apartments all around it, two-floor buildings with four apartments apiece, but those people are just as private, so it's just me and the trees and the traffic on that stretch of Green Valley Parkway just in front of me.
When I was reading "Two Days in June," in my mind, I was walking back and forth on that sidewalk. Constantly. I wasn't seeing Kennedy, I wasn't seeing the Civil Rights events described, I wasn't even seeing him consulting with his brother Bobby or anyone else in his inner circle. Just that sidewalk. Just those leaning trees. Just the sloping rock-laden hill going down to one side of the tennis court.
I don't know why. When my family and I move to another apartment complex next month in the same area, I won't remember it as vividly as I do now because where that apartment complex is is where I, where we, want to be. But during that reading, that sidewalk was there, and couldn't be budged.