I’m actually reading again.

It’s embarrassing to admit that I didn’t read much of anything last year, by way of literary works. Even when pursuing my English degree, I didn’t read as much as you might expect. I blame this on an unfortunate talent: I’m neurotically systemic and love synthesis. I was efficient and focused in college for the most part, able to craft a thesis and a tight analysis without ever finishing the book.

As a child, my mom told me that if I could write well, I could do anything. I don’t think she was referring to cutting corners in my chosen area of study.

For those writers I have read cover to cover, such as Kate Chopin, John Steinbeck, and Toni Morrison, I offer a kind of feverish allegiance. When I get stuck committing to a work by a different author, I run back to them and ask if we could be together just one more time. If reading was a high school prom, I’d be part wallflower and part creepy/infatuated/semi-stalker kid. 

I know I want to write again, but reading is probably more critical than writing. Writing without reading is running before you know how to walk, or even crawl. I would love to run right now – I even have places in mind I’d like to go, but first, I think it’s important that I crawl through some new books.

So for January, I have chosen Eat, Pray, Love. I bought it last spring, and like so many other books, it has decorated my house and that’s about it. (When it comes to my English degree background, I still try to keep up appearances.)  I am only 50 pages in, but I am so, so glad that I chose this book first, and I am regretting not having read it sooner.

I will say I’m a little startled at some similarities between Elizabeth Gilbert’s circumstances and my own… the prayers in the bathroom, the underlying worries, and so on. Her description of divorce is so on-point I feel like I’m revisiting a person I used to be. 

And I love the use of something as structured as the japa mala to seek and describe balance and meaning in her life. I love this conceptually, as a book, because I find vignettes and poetry to be a much-needed tug away from other, denser literature. And I love this personally, as a way of organizing the journey. A few months ago I moved the rosary my grandfather made for me from my nightstand to my purse, so I’d have it with me for reasons similar to Gilbert’s: as a reminder of balance, meaning, and as a structure for contemplating the two.

I’m grateful for such a good pick to get started – good to the point of distraction. For the first time since I was in high school, I would rather sit and read than imagine doing anything else.