RELIVING THE MAGIC.

I think I'm the only person who associates C.S. Lewis with meat pies. Almost a decade ago, they were the standard pre-dinner snack for me. After school, my mom and I would stop by this store to get them, I'd wait in the car, already on the fourth or fifth chapter of the Narnia book that I had just gotten that afternoon, and by the time we got home, I'd have my finger bookmarking my page, the meat pie clasped in the other hand, and once in a while, I'd bite into the pie and resume reading. It was just the right amount of spicy, the right texture of flaky, and it was never too hot. And I'd get into the book like you wouldn't believe, there would be hours and afternoons where I would be in my own little world, and even at night when I'd be wide-awake in bed, waiting for sleep to come, I would re-play parts of the book like images from a movie; I wouldn't see the ceiling above me, I'd see the leaves of the trees that dotted Narnian forests, and I wouldn't hear the fan whirring next to my feet, I'd listen to Peter or Lucy talk to the noble lion Aslan, whom I imagined had a sonorous, booming voice much like James Earl Jones.

This past Friday, I had to take my sister to the library for her Requisite Summer Reading. While she was thumbing through Lord of the Flies, I ventured over to the nearby Young Adult section, where I found a haven of my childhood favorites: Sweet Valley Twins, Nancy Drew, the Babysitters Club, Sweet Dreams, various Lois Lowry and Sharon Creech books, and [gasp] the Chronicles of Narnia. She literally had to drag me away, but I managed to grab a copy of The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader". I'm not so much looking for the same thrill that I got from reading it the first time; I just want those hours and afternoons back, when I would be back in my own little world, and back to those sleepless nights when I wouldn't even notice the minutes ticking by.

Sleep came easier back then because it was something I resisted, which is ironic now because it's something I literally pray for. You ever notice how you're more aware of yourself in the moments before you fall asleep? You notice your heart beating, your chest rising, the feel of your hair against your neck. And then you wait for it all to cut to black, and it never does. Well, I will have the "Dawn Treader" by my faithful side tonight, and hopefully all will be as it was again.