Listen to something or read something? Thats' the eternal dilemma if I'm riding the train on my own. If I listen to something I can look out the window at the landscape gliding past or even close my eyes. Reading requires a more active involvement and some effort. As part of a class I'm taking, I've begun reading Madame Bovary by Flaubert. Looking at the thick spine I feel a little daunted. That's a big slab of my attention span, I think. I begin reading and together we create the 19th Century world of his characters. It's a translation, but my eyes pass along the words as if I looking over a meticulously constructed tapestry. We create this world together and it's one unique to my imagination. As detailed as his descriptions are and as vividly as he creates the emotional atmosphere, the book will ultimately come to rest in the rooms of my imagining. The harder I work the more rewarding the experience. If my attention meanders off course I stop and reread the line again. Then out of the mist the object in question appears and will live in my mind forever.