One Life to Live

      Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.  ~Author Unknown

Books are the closest thing we have to entering another world, to time travel, or to parallel universes. A great book leaves you tired. Exhausted even. When you put a book down after the conclusion, it takes a split second the reorient yourself to your existence.  Depending on how epic the book is you just finished, you also feel…sad. An odd feeling of depression seems to hang over you once you leave the universe made up of ink, paper, and your mind.

According to my mother, when I was about 3, I grabbed a book, and demanded to be taught how to read. Dick and Jane books were my first novels. The first word I could read? “Look”. When I was about 4 I could “read” (aka recite) the entire book “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel” to my then infant brother. I remember being about 6 or 7, dad coming home from a long day at work, and he would read some of “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien to Sean and me. I remember my little girl imagination getting so wrapped up in the words dad would read and, as only a child could do, get totally lost in them. When dad would stop reading (it was typically bed time), I still remember the feeling of being jolted back to Earth.

                At some yard sale when I was about 10, my mother picked up a Nancy Drew mystery book for $0.25. I remember being so taken with this book, I hid it with my Bible to take to church that weekend. (Yes I did get scolded for reading it in church). This was my first experience of being locked in a world not my own that I could access myself (dad didn’t have to read it to me), and not wanting to leave it. I wanted more. This led me to an entire new experience. The “junior” section of the library! I quickly learned while the library didn’t have a limit on the number of books I could check out, my mother did. ;) Apparently you can’t come home with 40 books at a time when you have chores and homework to do.

                The best way I know how to describe the way I read is I devour books. When I go into a library or bookstore, I am like a starving kid at an all you can eat buffet. I don’t know how to pace myself. During nursing school, my first stop after the conclusion of every semester was the library. I would hide my textbooks, and read pure fiction having NOTHING to do with nursing. Freedom. I am also nostalgic about a physical book made of paper. Book readers (i.e. kindles) have their place, but I feel the need to be able to turn pages. I guess the danger of paper cuts adds to the excitement…

As tacky as this is, this blog was inspired by the fact I recently finished a series that I reminded me why I read. I am oddly sheepish to say that…yes…it was “The Hunger Games”. *ducks for tomatoes* Yes it is for “young adults” and I outgrew the young adult section when I was 16. Yes, my need to read it was brought on by the movie. *cringes again* But I will also admit I have recently not been reading. Work, TV, movies, and yes, the internet have been my distracters. (Oh I have other excuses! I work odd hours and the library isn’t open when I can go. I used to stop by Borders regularly and they are now out of business, etc.)

                My point of this particular rambling? Pick up a book again. Every year I reread all 6 Jane Austen novels and “The Lord of the Rings”. The first quarter of this year is already gone and I haven’t touched anything. *hides in shame*

               Already reading? Go support a local library. Read to a child. Find a book drive for a local school and donate. In this world of virtual worlds and constant stimulation, children, teenagers, and yes…even adults, need reminding what it means to curl up with a book.

The ironic and witty Jane Austen herself says it best:

                 “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” ― Jane Austen

Go and live another life that you will only find in the pages of a book…