Reading Between The Lines
During my recent trip with my mom to Marshall, North Carolina, we wandered through a row of thrift, antique, and craft stores. It was just a slow stroll to fill the morning and explore what the town had to offer. Shelves stacked with chipped porcelain, faded postcards, and furniture that had already lived a few lives.
I wasn’t planning to buy anything. Then, tucked on a low table, in a stack of old-looking books, I spotted a worn red hardcover: Robinson Crusoe. Inside the front cover, in delicate script, the inscription read 1923. The pages were yellowed, their edges soft and uneven, the way books feel after a century of being handled just enough to matter.
I realized I’d never actually read it. Somehow it had slipped through all the required reading lists of school and life. I knew the basic premise: shipwreck, solitude, survival; but not the details of the story itself. Still, something about that book felt timely.
Lately, I’ve been trying to find firmer footing; sorting through projects, priorities, and what I actually want to build next. The story of a man stranded, forced to rebuild from the ground up, suddenly felt less like a relic and more like a mirror.
So I bought it. Not because I needed another book, but because it felt like the book had found me.
I started reading the first few pages that night, and it was definitely feeling resonant. Beyond the contents of the story itself, finding the book in and of itself serves as a small reminder that sometimes the universe drops its metaphors in unexpected places. A century-old story about an adventurer trying to survive and make sense of his isolation. Feels like as good a guide as any for where I’m at right now.