I have a very spotty memory of my childhood. I have a hard time remembering anything before junior year in high school. 1988 is kind of the first year I remember well. And actually I don’t even remember that one all that clearly.
There are things I remember in flashes before then: playing indoor floor hockey in gym class in the first grade; vague recollections of Irish Step Dancing classes (true);listening to the Annie soundtrack over and over again; piano lessons in a convent. Wow, now I’ve painted a completely nerdy portrait of the blogger as a weird little girl and lost track of what I meant to be writing about.
Oh, right, the one thing I do absolutely remember about growing up is how much I loved to read. And I come from a long line of readers. My father read every newspaper and magazine you have ever heard of, and some you have never heard of. And they were all in his car. I spent my entire childhood riding around shotgun sitting on a giant stack of newspapers. But I’d often leaf through and read them when I was sitting in the car waiting for him to come out of a store or whatever errand we were on. (Hey, it was the 70s–everyone left their kids in the car back then, right?) I might have been the only nine-year old reader of Esquire and The New Yorker but it worked–it reeled me in and hooked me as a lifelong reader.
My mothers and sisters read a lot too and everyone in my family is a critic. In high school, maybe college, I had the naivete to tell a table of family members that I had read and, here’s the kicker, enjoyed The Bridges of Madison County. Telling them that I had had a lobotomy and was joining a cult in Siberia would have been met with nicer words and more understanding.
Anyway, somewhere along the line I stopped reading. Well, I stopped reading for pleasure. I think I’ve read every children’s book ever written. I certainly read a million scary articles on vaccinations, food allergies and the projected cost of college in 18 years. I read ingredient labels and formula cans and toy instructions. But by the time I would sit down to read a novel for the sheer joy of it, I could get through one sentence, maybe a paragraph and then all I’d be seeing is the back of my own eyelids.
So that is why I am so pleased to announce that it comes back. They tell you it comes back and it does! Signs of the old you before you were all consumed with babydom. The boys are 6, almost 5 (“But Mom I already feel 5”), and 3. They play together. They play alone. They go outside and play with neighbors. And that leaves time to be me, which means I get to read again.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve read two really amazing books:
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
Neither one is what you would call uplifting. Both stories pretty much start with a death and things don’t really look up from there. That’s not completely fair–there is hope and beauty and faith in both of them–but don’t expect sunshine and butterflies if you decide to give either of these a try. I’m not kidding. You have been warned.
Anyway, I couldn’t put either of them down.I devoured every page. But this isn’t so much a book review or a recommendation as a sigh of relief. I had wondered if I’d ever get to experience again that unique mixture of delight and disappointment that comes from reading the last word of a fantastic book.
But today as I finished Pigeon English, I snapped the book shut and smiled happily to myself.
A little part of me is back–and it feels good.
