All I Really Want to Do is Read

I mean it.  All I really want to do is read.  In the bath tub, on the john,  while cooking,  in three minute intervals when I'm waiting for someone, before bed, when I wake up, every free second.  I'll settle for a cereal box if I have to.  If  I've read a magazine, I'll tackle it from the back to front just to refresh the material.

 I read about three-five books a week.  Essentially, I eat them.  No, I'm not running from my life.  I like my life.  I am running to many many many other lives.  I want them all.  I'm life greedy.
Gobble, gobble, gobble.

 Reading is not retreating, it is an expanding activity.  Still I know it is an addiction because I am just a teeny tiny bit ashamed of how much I read and will hide it sometimes.
I am an executive coach when not reading and a cancellation of an appointment means guilt free reading time.  I try to act disappointed as I reach for my book.

 I resisted a Kindle thinking of it as betraying all my books.  Now my iPad is the first thing I would grab in an emergency.  In fact, in the middle of a heart attact, I was telling my husband to grab it before I went out the door to the hospital.  (Did fine.  Do take an aspirin.  It works)

I do wish it looked more propductive to be reading.  I have kidded about wanting an EXTREME READING CHALLENGE TV SHOW.  "Joyce has read up to  9 books a week and is heading to twelve this coming week.  Her challenger is strong but used to smaller books.  This week these "extreme readers" will have to read War and Peace and be tested for retention as well as speed.  Eye movement will be recorded for efficiency"  Tough Mudder for Readers!

 My husband does get jealous of my contant reading even though he is a writer and often has to leave me alone to write.  There is something so private and self absorbed about reading, that I totally understand his jealousy.  But reading is the most delicious addiction.  I salivate in book stores.

I recently had a close relative tell me that he doesn't read books. Just the newspaper.  I mean, I have a real blinspot.  I can not comprehend how to live a life without books.  What do you do when you use the bathroom?

Most  book addicts develop instantly and early in life.   They remember the relief and joy of diving into their first really good book.  Most are multi-book readers.  They have at least three books going at the same time.  To clease the palate so to speak.  They range widely and so can be reading a book on
Coal mining in Pennslvania, a novel about ancient Greece and a thriller set in Romania.  Book addicts have no rule about reading.  They'll jump pages  and skip around as they want or dig in and underline.  We (not "they" anymore--I totally fess up) panic if there is not a pile of books waiting to be read.  Book piles are essential to the aesthtic of the greedy reader.  A friend of mine told me yesterday that he received 17 books for Christmas and the glee on his face was kind of scary.

I've expended too many words.  I need to go ingest some.
My sample books on my iPad await my choice.
All I really want to do is read.  Or think about what I will read or have read.
Contentment.

The Deaths Have Started

The deaths have started.
Not the ones you have expected for years.
Grandparents, parents.
Sad and profound.  Grieving time needed to recover.

Not those deaths, but the ones you thought couldn't/ wouldn't happen.
Your siblings, your cousins,  your high school love,  the maid of honor at your wedding.
 YOUR PEERS.
Your equals.  Your age, your sex, your same history of music and pop culture.
You share the same jokes, the same cringe moments, the same absurd teen-age clothes.
That's who's  beginning to die.
And you mourn them and honor them and miss them horribly.

But there is another layer to this sorrow.
It is that intimation, that echoe, that wisp of awareness that you are part of this group.
There comes a slight feeling that you are waiting in line and can't step out.

A new stage of life.

Death just kills me

Death just slays me, always has and certainly will.
My sister -in-law died just today.
I have that heart heaviness that's like carrying the dentist's lead protection pad inside my chest.
She was 78 and was willing to go in order to die with as little agony from cancer as possible.  For her family mostly.
So the sorrow is immense.  She was my sister.
I've only been present at one death--my dad's.

Here is what killed me:

How fast the he disappeared.
He was so 'gone;  to----surely somewhere.
Where did that personality go, that spirit, that unique sharply defined person?

How immediate the relief is.
Finally breathing out the held breath wondering if  your loved one will be able to make it?
The last letting go after the years when you begin to realize that death will take your mom and dad.
At last, the worst has happened.  It's an odd accompianment to the loss.

How sweet and sharp the grief is ----at first.
How intimate the atmosphere, how barriers drop for the love.
How momentous even joyous.

How invidious and smooth the latter grief is.
How it enters and finds a home.  Makes itself comfortable
Until you are comfortable living with it for always.

Beyond the sorrow, death is bewildering.
Just kills me

Hibernation is Great

Hibernation is great.  I am just crawling out of my post Christmas log now.
Every year I hibernate for the week between Christmas and New Years.
I don't exactly plan it but the sugar coma from the holidays kind of rolls me into it.
I stay up late and alone.  Staring at tree lights, playing solitaire, reading Swedish mysteries.
I sleep late, often, irritatingly long for my non-hibernating husband.  I don't return phone calls.  If someone catches me I'm vague.  I am in a dream state.  I do the daily chores but with no sense of time passing.  I lose things and don't care.  I mess up all appointments that I haven't cancelled.  I am asleep people!!!  My breathing is slow.  I'ts not necesarily a relaxed or peaceful state.  I'm simply sleeping.  Occasionally I wonder if I'll ever leave the house.  Or wear anything but flannel.  Pajamas.  And the New Year  is my alarm clock.  I begin to care about people again.  I think of work I want to do.  Projects I want to begin.  I am waking up.  Deeply refreshed.
The whole world needs more hibernation.  Just chill.  Palestine and Israel---take a nap.  Time out.
Congress--grab your blankets, get on your rug, come out when you are cleansed, renewed, your system rested.  Spouses, climb into bed together for a prolonged winter's night.  Cuddled, in touch.  No demands.  The benefits are wild to think about.  Hibernation is great.  Let's become a hiber--nation.