Nose In A Book
I am one of those people who, for all of my childhood and beyond, have been genuinely happiest when my nose is in a book. I remember when I was in college how I couldn’t wait until I was done so I would have more time to read. (Ha!) I was constantly exposed to new materials that I would only get a taste of but could never fully delve into. My list of things to read grew faster than I could keep up with. And I foolishly thought that outside of college I would find the reading time I craved. And I didn’t fully realize at the time what a powerful thing it was to read and discuss in a community — even if that community was nothing more than a class full of people who I had decided only half cared.
I’ve noticed when I talk to people now about books and reading that most people get this sort of hushed awe about it. They usually tell me about how important books are and how they know someone who reads a lot and how that person is really smart. What usually follows is an admission that they don’t read much. This is almost always said with a bit of embarrassment. I’ve let them sit in that embarassment and walked away with my smug attachment to the library, the bookstore, the great mothers and fathers of literature, etc.
As I go through life and deal with my own illusions about myself and “the way things are” I have to admit that I have always held very close to my heart a sense of satisfaction and, embarassingly enough, a personal superiority around my love for books and reading and words and language and writing. When I was younger and “troubled” I received little encouragement in the academic arena, but even I knew that testing out at a 10th grade reading level in 3rd grade was a big deal. It was something that I was good at and liked so I clung to it. Almost as an identity. Okay, maybe not almost, rather most assuredly. I liked books. I could write a little. That was who I was. It made me smart and wonderful.
After college, I had less time for reading, as I’m sure you can imagine. And as the pressures of “adult life” mounted, my time for reading got more and more crowded out. At first I noticed my vocabularly lacked a little lustre. Then I had no time to care about that either. I realized for the first time how much mindfulness reading requires. And how it means being able to set aside all the noise and clutter in your mind to immerse yourself in another world. That has become harder to do. I started reading more non-fiction. But I missed stories.
I am always grateful when the opportunities to dash your own self-importance start to present themselves, because it helps clear out a little of that clutter. So lately, in the light of my struggle to make time for reading and my even greater paralysis around writing, I am thinking a lot about my senior class in Biological Psychology where I read one simple article that talked about how they think it is possible that only 20%-40% of brains are really wired to be “great” readers. How the processing of words and language might just be a fluke of biology and genetics. And how that forced me to imagine that, like so many things, there is an element of luck involved in the things we are “good” at (or in my mind, the things that make us good) and it may have very little to do with us. It’s hard to feel arrogant about luck-of-the-draw physiology.
Lately I am reading a lot again. Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, comic books, blogs, textbooks. And it feels good. My brain feels happy. I am learning to shut down the noise of my mind and live in the moment where I am scanning words across a page and letting them sink in. And I’m learning to read them with a little bit more of the being comfortable in my own skin. I’m putting the eternal “Why?” and “How?” behind everything and hoping to let the smug superiority, born out of an internal terror and insecurity of “never good enough!” just slide off.
August 16th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
I love to read. I love meeting people like you who suggest books to read. I have bought quite a few books on your suggestion. I am almost done with Abarat and eagerly awaiting the second book to come out cheaper! I haven’t finished it yet because I don’t want it to end. So I put it aside to read the new Harry Potter. I am reading that slowly too because I want to savor it. Thanks Rachel!