作家Michelle Kuo的the healing power of reading, 讲她的朋友Patrick的故事，他因为杀人进了监狱。
有一段讲，监狱里的人不愿意去思考自己的现状，想到过去、想到自己目前的状况还要持续很久使他们感到痛苦、受折磨。于是为了不感到痛苦，他们关闭了自己的感受器。故事主人公Patrick在监狱几年，退化到写一句话全是拼写错误，已经不会表达自己。（原话“He said that there are people in jail who, like slaves, don't want to think about their condition, because it's too painful. Too painful to think about the past, too painful to think about how far we have to go. 'Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me.' ”）
后来Michelle陪伴Patrick阅读，阅读诗歌，阅读父亲写给儿子的信，在阅读中感受爱和渴望，重燃了Patrick的感受器。
（原话摘选: And then we went on to read one of my favorite books, Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead," which is an extended letter from a father to his son. He loved this line: "I'm writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you've done in your life ... you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle."
Something about this language, its love, its longing, its voice, rekindled Patrick's desire to write. And he would fill notebooks upon notebooks with letters to his daughter. In these beautiful, intricate letters, he would imagine him and his daughter going canoeing down the Mississippi river. He would imagine them finding a mountain stream with perfectly clear water. ）
生命中有一些人，你会觉得自己令他们感到失望，就像Patrick对他女儿的感觉。很多人会选择去逃避，去忘记，因为想起这个人，会让自己感到痛苦。但Patrick通过阅读，做到了勇敢面对自己内心的这份痛苦，去给自己的女儿写信，写他的美好向往和对她的爱。这就是阅读的力量。
（原话:As I watched Patrick write, I thought to myself, and I now ask all of you, how many of you have written a letter to somebody you feel you have let down? It is just much easier to put those people out of your mind. But Patrick showed up every day, facing his daughter, holding himself accountable to her, word by word with intense concentration. ）
这让我想到我自己，我自己的逃避。小时候姥姥对我特别好，最喜欢去姥姥家，能待一整个暑假不回家。研究生的生活让我感到压抑，那时候跟父母亲人都没有沟通的欲望，感觉他们都不会理解我，姥姥也是。2018年过年，姥姥问我对象的事，具体说的什么我不记得了，但是因为跟男朋友闹矛盾，我也敷衍过去了。2019年底出国一年，2020年回国后才知道，姥姥在2019年过年前去世了，妈妈瞒了我一年。印象里姥姥身体一直很好，这太突然了。直到现在，我都会有意避开舅舅们这些亲戚，不愿意提到姥姥，因为心中有愧。她对我那么好，我跟她最后一次见面，最后一次说话，竟然是不耐烦且敷衍地回答她的问题。她也只不过想跟我聊聊天吧，然而那时的我不愿意跟任何长辈深聊。
让我直面这痛苦，去给姥姥写信，我会说什么呢？“姥姥，我结婚了，过得很好，老公也是咱一个地方的。姥姥，对不起，我那时不是不愿意跟你聊，只是那个什么都做不好的人生阶段，让我不知道如何面对自己。我没有去过你的坟前，没有给你磕头，你不要怪我，我心里一直有你。我昨天做梦还梦到你了，就像我们最后一次在我家见面，你不说话，就安静地坐在我跟舅舅们旁边。希望你在那个世界跟姥爷重逢了，你们俩还是过着平淡又幸福的生活，像我小时候看到的那样，再不像姥爷走后的几年那么孤单。”
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阅读是拉进人与人距离的一种方式，这就是阅读的力量。我们可以通过阅读，分享彼此对这个世界的认识。在阅读的世界里，人人平等。
（原话:In telling this story, I wanted to expose that power and then to ask, how do we diminish the distance between us? Reading is one way to close that distance. It gives us a quiet universe that we can share together, that we can share in equally. ）
有人问，读书能改变一个人的气质吗？能改变一个人的生活吗？
也能，也不能。
那些现实世界里的事，或许不能被改变，就像Patrick的母亲去世，不被雇主接受，他无家可归。
但是他的内心改变了。书里的山川湖海，能够丰富他的想象，让他感受到美好，能够赋予他勇气，和与人好好相处的能力。最重要的，因为他心中有爱，对母亲的爱，对女儿的爱，而阅读使他与母亲和女儿有了内心的连接，曾经真实的，自己想象中的。
这就是阅读的力量。
（原话:You're probably wondering now what happened to Patrick. Did reading save his life? It did and it didn't. When Patrick got out of prison, his journey was excruciating. Employers turned him away because of his record, his best friend, his mother, died at age 43 from heart disease and diabetes. He's been homeless, he's been hungry.
So people say a lot of things about reading that feel exaggerated to me. Being literate didn't stop him form being discriminated against. It didn't stop his mother from dying. So what can reading do? I have a few answers to end with today.
Reading charged his inner life with mystery, with imagination, with beauty. Reading gave him images that gave him joy: mountain, ocean, deer, frost. Words that taste of a free, natural world. Reading gave him a language for what he had lost. How precious are these lines from the poet Derek Walcott? Patrick memorized this poem. "Days that I have held, days that I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters, my harboring arms."
Reading taught him his own courage. Remember that he kept reading Frederick Douglass, even though it was painful. He kept being conscious, even though being conscious hurts. Reading is a form of thinking, that's why it's difficult to read because we have to think. And Patrick chose to think, rather than to not think. And last, reading gave him a language to speak to his daughter. Reading inspired him to want to write. The link between reading and writing is so powerful. When we begin to read, we begin to find the words. And he found the words to imagine the two of them together. He found the words to tell her how much he loved her.
Reading also changed our relationship with each other. It gave us an occasion for intimacy, to see beyond our points of view. And reading took an unequal relationship and gave us a momentary equality. When you meet somebody as a reader, you meet him for the first time, newly, freshly. There is no way you can know what his favorite line will be. What memories and private griefs he has. And you face the ultimate privacy of his inner life. And then you start to wonder, "Well, what is my inner life made of? What do I have that's worthwhile to share with another?"
I want to close on some of my favorite lines from Patrick's letters to his daughter. "The river is shadowy in some places but the light shines through the cracks of trees ... On some branches hang plenty of mulberries. You stretch your arm straight out to grab some." And this lovely letter, where he writes, "Close your eyes and listen to the sounds of the words. I know this poem by heart and I would like you to know it, too." ”
