I apologize in advance. Trying to figure things out. While it is nothing serious, it can be frustrating, leaving me unproductive. I should really find a way to transform these particular struggles into creative endeavors. In the past, I would just run from them, retreat into countless daydreams. Instead, here I am sharing it. Because, maybe writing it out is a good first step...
(Yet again I find myself drawn to an Edward Hopper painting. This one is Compartment C Car. I must confess, I wish hats would come back in style for both men and women. I would love to wear something besides a baseball cap. Also, click here to see a dozen other beautiful and fun paintings of people reading. There were quite a few I enjoyed seeing.)
I love to read. Both fiction and non-fiction. Magazines, pamphlets, and books. I even enjoy perusing instruction manuals. I could spend an afternoon happily perusing pages of computer programming tutorials. Then the internet arrived. Online articles and blog posts replaced long passages in encyclopedias. And for a while, I was satiated as I devoured more and more knowledge. In one way, it was a treasure trove: I was able to research topics outside my academic experiences: evolutionary psychology, the development of arms and armor in western Europe, theories about gender identity. However, something was different. My knowledge was as wide as an ocean, but rose no higher than my ankles. As I dug dipper into the web of information, I drifted further and further away from the world of books. For me, YouTube videos, podcasts, blogs, and Q&A sites never replaced the intellectual depth and creative expanse of a good book.
Unfortunately, I continue to find myself avoiding books. A part of me struggles with this fact. Because, there was a time when it was different.
When I was a child, I would enter the library, and just grab things off the shelves. For a long time, it was how-to’s and glossy pages filled with model airplanes and WWII dioramas. I never did make any of those things: if only I had possessed a hot glue gun; if only had acquired the patience to finish a model kit. Some times, I would not even look, but just grab whatever was on the rack. That is how I ended up with the French translation of a story about seven Chinese brothers. One of my life milestones was when I graduated to the adult section of the library. Rows of books without pictures awaited me--except for that reference book filled with beautiful color pictures of military uniforms through the ages. And they were filled with subjects that required me to grow up intellectually. Dirty wars involving the CIA that destroyed my naive patriotism. The geography of death camps throughout Eastern Europe which still haunts me to this day. And a fictional account of an historical samurai that was considered Japan’s version of Gone with the Wind.
It was not just the stories themselves that excited me, or the knowledge I gained from reading. It was the experience itself. Of sitting in a minivan, alone with a book, rain pouring down against the rooftop, just outside a summer rental. Of hiding under covers on Christmas Eve, flashlight in hand, finding myself passing through a wardrobe with four English children into a snow drenched world. Of cruising through a book about World War II, well past bedtime, falling asleep, and then dreaming of air raids and daring escapes. Of sharing with a dear friend the joy I felt with a trilogy covering the adventures of nine heroes and a ring of power. And finding out that after he read it, my friend wrote his own little story about us going on an quest. Of sneaking away with one of my mother’s books--that very one about the samurai, filled with violence, sex, and redemption--into my room, and devouring it. Then, years later, spending several separate trips to the library in order to find it—I had forgotten its title! Finally, decades later, using the internet to acquire my own coveted copy.
To this day, I have this distinct memory of a single passage I read when I was ten. The book was a mystery thriller, and there was this one scene that haunted me when I read it. I can still recall the fall leaves, sharp and jagged; a crisp wind, swirling up from nowhere; and a cold dusk, creeping in around a young hero. And how the leaves rose up and surrounded the boy, snapping at his face, hands, and neck. Do not ask me the book’s title, or its plot. I cannot even remember whether the wind was pure coincidence, or a villain’s spell. But the chill that ran up my spine as I read those words for the first time? I have never forgotten that.
The power of books!
Why am I bringing this up now? Because for the past few days, I have been reading a non-fiction book. I began it while vacationing in Aruba. Yes, I sat on a beach, in a bathing suit, reading through a four-inch thick book about the Cold War. Then I walked away from it. It was not boring, and I was not really busy. Something else pulled me away. And now something else is pulling me back. Two days ago I decided to pick it up exactly where I had left off.
And I am in heaven.
Interestingly, I have encountered this pleasure before. Two months ago, I finally spent a week reading an historical novel that I had picked up from the library three days before the pandemic. That very winter before the lockdown I struggled with the conclusions I gathered from a professor’s short work on politics in Wisconsin. Several years ago, on that very beach in Aruba, I consumed the first book in a science fiction trilogy. And before that, I found myself reeling emotionally and intellectually from a text on morality.
But, during the second half of my life, these moments have been too few and far between. For the past two decade, every time I have found myself finishing a book that I have enjoyed, I wonder why I do not do it more often. Alas, I do not have a simple answer.
It is frustrating.
Yet, writing it out may provide some clues. At the very least, reminiscing can be inspiring. I will let you know how it goes.
(Apologies for this post.)
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