If you were to ask me why I read and love Annie Dillard so much, I would't know how I reply. I suppose by reading this, you are asking me. I answer, I don't know.

To read her is a lot like meditating, for that is what she is doing. She is meditating about the trees on the Galapagos, or birds or fish or Tinker Creek or a thousand other things in nature. Occasionally you'll find a throw away line about her family, or her friends, or neighbors. Usually children.

No, she talks more about transcendent qualities in nature, or the problem of pain. She is one of the few writers who seems to take the problem of pain seriously. Perhaps it is because she still wonders about it, like any sane human being (I think) would. "Would someone please explain to Alan McDonald in his dignity, to the deer at Providencia in his dignity, what is going on? And mail me the carbon." She talks about God, the universe, and liturgy. She analogizes to polar expeditions, and solar eclipses.

Eventually, you will find an author in your life who, if she is perhaps not "right," she is at least wise. One of those authors, for me, is Annie Dillard. It is like reading a letter from an older sibling, or a cherished mentor - perhaps they are incorrect about everything, but they are still, somehow, wise.

And she is one of the few authors whose prose can snatch me up out of time and place. I didn't even realize someone was talking to me. I didn't even realize I had somewhere to be. I'm reading.