Time to Read

Of course I believe that everyone should read.  I enjoy television but books stretch your mind more. Unlike TV, books don’t tell you every doggone thing to think or feel by way of sound and visual effects. There is also the liberal use and reliance on stereotypes.   With a book, your mind has more work to do in terms of experiencing the characters, the scenes and filling in the blanks.  Long after I have finished a book, I continue to wonder about the characters and what happened to them.

I am always challenged with finding the time to read.  I’m a busy lady.  I guess I could find a way to un-busy myself.  When I was much younger, I would read a lot at night while in bed.  As a child, I read throughout the summer.  But now, reading at night just puts me to sleep and as an adult there really isn’t any difference from one season to the next since I don’t get summers off.   

I am amused that I can write at night but I can’t seem to read at night.  I’m pretty sure you have to be able to read in order to write. 

Not too long ago I had a not-so-deep revelation.  I discovered that I could get in some solid reading time during my bus ride to work.  I’ve been riding the metro to work for about a year now.   I would sit on the bus watching other people read.  A few times, I brought parts of the Sunday Washington Post to read.  You can imagine that could be annoying to me and to others.   Even with my long arms, constantly opening and folding and not trying to elbow anyone was a challenge.  And who really wants to listen to a noisy paper being opened and folded repeatedly at 7 am in a crowded, enclosed space?   Although a presumed natural progression, this did not lead me to try to read a book.

Nope.  Instead, I would allow my idle mind to wander here and there.  And just like Ma said, an idle mind is the workshop of the devil.  I wondered why the lady in front of me would choose a wig that appeared to be a bird’s nest on her head.   Other times I would replay a recent experience that left me angry, sad or feeling diminished in some way.  I needed to give my mind something constructive to do.   

Then one day, on my way out the door, I grabbed Amy Tan’s The Opposite of Fate.  I had picked up and put down this book so many times over the last few years.  Just last week I finally finished it.  The book is about her life and her creative process.  She seems to be coming from an honest place.  I learned a lot from it and it will help you to see that you can get your creative work done in spite of life happening to you and in spite of yourself. 

I like to follow non-fiction with fiction.  So I picked up The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah.  I had been hearing about this book for years.  She is taking me on a wild ride that I love.  She is quite clever and I can’t contain my amusement.  That’s one great thing about riding the metro; nothing really seems to be that odd.  It’s perfectly acceptable for me to periodically laugh out loud.