What We Talk About When We Talk About Reading, Part I

At the beginning of the year I became very ambitious about my work/life balance, challenged by my mentor to "work hard and play hard" for about a year at that point. My renewed resolve prompted me to set an overtly zealous reading goal for myself of fifty books to be read by the end of the year. With my commute and weather surroundings I figured I could easily accomplish it--I had a two hour ride in and a two hour ride out, and 90% of the time it was raining.

I was on task for the first two months, and then the residuals of the day or preparations for the day at work took hold and the little reading I could manage were New Yorker articles on my Kindle, followed by a whittling down to just listening to podcasts and sleeping. Those reading goals are on a website, that keeps careful calculation with the help of an internal calendar, and when I started to come in below goal the website wasted no time in telling me. By the time I left my last employer I was four books behind goal, and one of my passions looked more like work than play.

I've been taking time (for I have nothing but that right now) to learn pacing, and learning desire vs. fear to drive me to an activity. I recently lowered the goal to forty books for the year, and the nagging message on the screen disappeared, pre-empted by "You're right on track!" I would like to think so. Lowering the bar to something attainable didn't make me feel like a failure; instead, I felt that I was realizing my capability. AND I enjoy reading again.

There is no way to turn reading into a genius race or a power sport for me. My reason for reading reminds me of a friend of mine who, about six years ago, went into the Peace Corps, serving two tours--one in Uzbekistan and one in the Ukraine. (I thought of her tours when I read "Eat Pray Love"--all of Liz Gilbert's countries started with "I," and all of my friend's countries started with "U.") Both of these countries were isolated and primitive, and she was usually far from technology. Once every so many days she was able to make use of a cell phone or the internet, and while I was never on the cell phone list I made sure to make the most of my part of the e-mail list--I wrote long and poetic letters of my trips to the City from Sunnyvale on weekends, and of my explorations of the City.

When she wasn't reading my letters, my friend spent her free time with something she desired because it could speak English and keep her company easily--books. She read novels with a hunger that I had never heard of, even during my college days. (Keep in mind regarding the language aspect that my friend's first language was Cantonese. She fluently spoke Cantonese and English, and could make her way through French. She learned some Russian during the Ukrainian tour and was studying Uzbek when the American government pulled the Peace Corps from Uzbekistan during political unrest in the region.) During these tours in her e-mails back to us, she described the feeling of isolation--all of her friends were far away and did not understand her decision, situation, or loneliness--and books became her immediate social circle, her support. Of the collection she shared with me there's only one book that still sticks with me, a book that I waded through when she returned called "The Master and Margarita;" it was a book I found to be extremely Orwellian in nature, and it moved between haunting me and boring the shit out of me. Problem was, I couldn't read it in the same light as my friend did--I was surrounded by my brother and other friends, not to mention a boyfriend (or, more aptly, a poor excuse for a boyfriend, but still an mind-occupying concern). I had a job and couldn't imagine working for free in a far-away country like she was because as a relatively new transplant to California I was still getting used to it. Looking back, I believe that explains my lack of consistent interest in that book when she found it so engrossing.

I have been unemployed four times in California, and now, in the latest stretch, I am able to gain something from the experience. The first three opportunities I happened to be healing from a broken heart, either as a distraction or just as bad timing, so the free time of joblessness was used to sit in a chair somewhere or swim/run/lift weights until I could forget the misery of being unwanted. This time there is no misery. I'm still doing the running/lifting weights thing, but I'm unemployed while the rest of my friends are working, which reminds me of the isolation my Peace Corps friend felt. It's not so much that I need a fellow English speaker (I'm one of those whacked-out individuals who enjoy being surrounded by languages that I don't know, as long as the non-English speakers around me don't snub me for not being able to speak their language), but that I usually coast to leaning on someone more than I should while I mend. While I would love to abuse anyone's good nature to make this transition easier on myself, I've opted for books instead--welcome companions, I don't abuse them to the point where they get tired of me, and I don't tire of them when I am always finding a new one to read. Not that I'm replacing friends with books, or hiding from friends with books, but that I'm trying not to eat others alive by spending some time with something that comforts me and gives me strength: a solid, well-written literary novel.

When I am back among the normal levels of existence again, then I'll slack off on the reading. For now, I'm learning about myself, and my ability in reading.

Onward, dear reader.