Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30am, as I normally do. The house is quiet, and I don’t want to wake the rest of the family, so I usually read. I went out to the couch and found a comfy position with my feet up on our battered coffee table (Yes, battered from years of children and friends, drawing, denting, scratching. When the are gone, we’ll get a nice one), pulled a cover from the basket next to the couch and wrapped up, propped my right arm up on two pillows and put another one on my lap to hold the book, and preceded to pick up where I’d left off in Lord of The Rings. It had been a week or so since I’d read in it. It’s too big for the bus, so it’s my main weekend reading. Anyway, it felt so cozy, so quiet, and I had the time all to myself. I love that time. It feels like extravagance.
Lives today are noisy and busy, and there is always something that needs to be done. Reading is something that may not contribute to any of that, but it contributes to my mind, and my soul, if I can be so corny. For a time, I escape to another place, and in that place I can drift along on the surface, or I can look deeper, for meaning, and for things that relate to me, that mean something to me. In a way it’s very zen.
I read once, a long time ago, that in Buddhism, part of the meditation in life is to focus on one thing. If you are peeling potatoes, peel potatoes. If you are running, run. If you are meditating, just meditate. With electronics and music and everything going on, I think no one really takes that time to just do one thing. When I knit or quilt, do housework or cook, I always have the t.v. on, or music playing. I am never just doing one thing. With reading, you can’t really do anything else at the same time. And I think that is a good thing. Why do we always have to be entertained, and have every sense filled to the max?
I’ve noticed over the years my reading time being squeezed until I get a book I can’t put down. It’s something I am really pushing against, trying to give reading a place in my every day. The payoff is the stories, emotions, and lives that I read, learn, and experience. I sometimes feel sorry when someone doesn’t have that.
Recently I’d read ‘Neighbor Rosicky’, a short story by Willa Cather. I encouraged Kimball to read it too, knowing it wasn’t his thing. He loved it. Bingo! He got something out of it. That’s what I wish and hope for everyone.