I had known about its release for a while, but I kept hesitating to get it (the drawback of not being able to interact directly with the book). There was something holding me back; I had the impression it was too exuberant for me and that I wouldn't like it. Until, one afternoon, having arrived downtown for other errands, I quickly popped into the bookstore for five minutes. (I deviated from my path because I simply couldn't resist, and I don't think I'll ever be cured – nor do I want to be! – ever.)
I went straight to the children's book shelf: I had in mind "The Sound of Colors," recently published by Frontiera Publishing House. I picked it up and started flipping through it... It seems to me I started to cry. (Or was that the second time, when I went, two days later, to buy it? I no longer know...) I don't think you can help but cry holding such a book in your hands. It is so colorful and poignant, it pierces through so many dreams, aspirations, memories, searches, falls, hopes and ascents, that you can't help but find yourself in it and wonder how blindly you're navigating your life...
Fascinated by the story of the girl who went blind at the age of fifteen, I also prepared a lively workshop based on the book (with references to the Sunday of the Blind Man and the story of Louis Braille, with red apples, colors, and pop-up cards). Reading it to the little ones, I constantly wondered how much they understood from all they saw and heard, only to then, at the end of the day, receive my own lesson and be confronted myself with these cruel and painful questions.
It's agonizing to live as an impostor... I couldn't calm down to sleep. "What good is all this then? What good is reading literature your whole life if you won't experience and feel many of the things you discover in a book? What do I understand of a blind person's pain?"... After praying a little, the turmoil of thoughts dissipated when I remembered a word from my spiritual Father, who told us at one point (of course, more profoundly than I can now convey) that, as long as you only look at your own cross, it seems impossible to bear. Only when you step outside yourself and look outward, at the heavy crosses of other people, do you realize that what you have is incomparably lighter... Now I know that, like the little girl, I too "seek the light that flickers unseen in my heart."
This book reminded me to be grateful for every morning I wake up able to see the sunlight, the wandering clouds, the flowers, the red apples, the golden leaves, all the wonders that surround us and color our existence...
Georgiana Camalessa