bookfast

This morning as I microwaved another cup of coffee for myself and listened halfheartedly to Raising Sand while my eyes trailed my neighbor to her car, I caught a glimpse of myself in my own mind's eye: a smoky phantom superimposed over a vivid kaleidescope of images from the books I'd immersed myself in. Last week, I read a thrilling fantasy adventure story (The Blue Sword), a heartbreakingly epic family saga (East of Eden), and a terse memoir of grief (The Year of Magical Thinking). The week before, it was a sweet nosegay of a novel (The Enchanted April), a dark romance (The House of the Seven Gables), a stark and sorrowful tale of a dying small town (The Plague of Doves), a humorously poignant love story (Lives of the Saints) and a delightfully absorbing satiric fantasy (Going Postal). I could go on. Another series of weeks like the ones I've just experienced, and I'll be donning my armor and setting forth in search of windmills to joust.

When I speak with friends about the delights of reading, I always mention that books have the power to deepen and enrich one's quality of life...but I must confess that of late that has not been true for me. Rather, I have engaged in a parisitic relationship with the books I've been reading by permitting them to sap the vast majority of my time and energy. I've grown dependent on books, have been using them as a means to escape my life rather than a means to understand my life better.

For this reason, I am imposing some limitations on my literary consumption. I am going to let my reading affect my life by having a life that is subject to being affected...which means doing less reading and more living. One hour a day of pleasure reading is plenty, and leaves me (factoring in eight hours of sleep) thirteen hours in which to be present, three-dimensional, and mutable in this three-dimensional mutable beautiful earth.

Already I'm beginning to feel more substantial.