On When to Read

When I was a little girl, on Sundays at our house it was quiet. And if I wasnt' staring up at the ceiling looking for patterns in the popcorn or running around the neighborhood building forts with the other kids, I was reading. I read for pleasure.

I still read to escape the busy world and find new thoughts, new friends, new contemplations in a book. People always ask me when I read. I don't know, I just fit it in. If a book is good, it finds its own way into my day. I would rather read a good book than watch tv, see updates on Facebook, surf the net, or any other thing we all so often fill up our time with.

I remember when I was in 10th grade we had an exchange student living with us from Germany. And I vividly recall sitting in her room one night and telling her all about this boy I had read about in A Separate Peace by John Knowles. His name was Finny. I described him in great detail to Karen, she listened carefully as I went on and on about his characteristics, his demeanor, and his good looks. Karen stopped me and said..."You sound like you are in love." Finny, the character, had inhabited my thoughts so much I was infactuated with him so that I couldn't help running back to the story just to exist in that world and know this boy some more. I feel sometimes as if the people I read about inhabit my thoughts, they certainly haunt my daily life and go along with me as I go along.

As I write this, I think I sound a little nuts! OK, I know it might sound loco, but I don't think I am alone. I think that is the draw of well written stories. They dwell with the reader and open up new avenues of thought and experience in the best sort of way.

The way to fit reading into a life is to find satisfaction in the story. There are good ones out there, just waiting to be discovered.