On Reading

Lately I've noticed that, when it comes to reading, I have developed post-graduate ADD: I can't seem to stay focused or overly interested in anything I've started this summer. Not Donald Miller's "new" book (which is at least two years old). because I started it right after school and didn't have the motivation to read one more thing that made me think (even if I really enjoy his style and his thoughts.) Not The Shepherd of the Hills, which to this day remains my favorite book of all time, because I started it right before the July travel extravaganza began. And not a historical non-fiction book about the New Madrid earthquakes Mom let me borrow, because my evenings seem to be full of other activities that are more pressing, like playing Final Fantasy X in the air conditioning. I think my brain has needed time to decompress, which may be why it refuses to soak up anything longer than Glamour. (Yes, I read Glamour. And I like it. Sue me.)

Perhaps once the weather cools, and our traveling slows, and other activities seem less pressing, I'll jump back into reading at a more normal pace for myself. I do miss it, really. At least this fall I won't be burdened with reading at least two novels every week--not that reading two novels in a week is in and of itself a burden, but looking for the right angle around which one can both sound halfway intelligent in class immediately and frame a late-in-the-semester argument for one of two or three 20-pg term papers, all while trying to remember the subtleties of plots and characters, certainly can be. And they will be novels of my own choosing, not of someone else's. They will be what I like and not what someone tells me I should like, or, at the very least, appreciate as a hallmark of The Canon. So if I read War and Peace or the next Repairman Jack novel, no one is going to judge my taste in literature (except perhaps Josh, who would probably vote for Repairman Jack): I am no longer chained to the ideal of an English major. That's nice, too. Sometimes I think novels are simply notches on the belt for English majors, so to speak. A point upon which one can be braggadocios, but which, in the end, don't really mean much at all.

Here's to reading (or conversely, not reading at all) what I want to because I want to, not because I have to or because I think I should. Here's to remembering why I loved literature enough to study it for six years to begin with. Here's to cool nights and hot tea and good books, and to hazy summer evenings where I do nothing but drape myself across the bed in the one room of our duplex that is air conditioned, playing video games and watching movies and old Seinfeld episodes..

That sounds pretty darn good right now...