I would Read in trees, in bed, on a blanket outdoors, and by the thin light of a closet door ajar illicitly late at night. I was forever grateful to Miss Mamie, the town librarian, who eased the book limit for me and let me haul out huge stacks from our little storefront library each week. She recommended the best books always, and I'll never forget her. I Read constantly throughout high school and college, thrilled that Reading was basically my curriculum as an English major. I always Read every novel I assigned right along with my students, every time, even though I'd Read them a hundred times already.
So it was particularly hurtful when my inability to Read surfaced and lingered for years. I would try and try to Read, but it was a chore, not a pleasure. I wasn't having the same experience as before; there was no Joy in it. I wasn't getting Lost In The Book. I may as well have been Reading a textbook, just chewing up information that I wasn't particularly interested in or attached to.
Then I had a breakthrough when I was refocusing on other parts of my life and getting a handle on my stress. I suddenly was able to Read again, really Read and enjoy it. I started tearing through books again like before, and it was so rewarding. The best time of the day was when I was done with everything else and could nestle in with my book among the couch pillows and the quiet (or the cat's snoring). I would look at my book stack on the table and smile every day. Books once again appeared on my Christmas List, and my sons happily indulged me.
But once again, I'm stuck. Experience would tell me that Something Is Broken, that I need to look at my Stressors or How I'm Coping with Everything Out There. I know by Reading over at your sites that many of you are having the same problem. We can't concentrate. I know in my case, I worry for my husband and sons, still out there, working in "essential businesses." I try not to, but I fear for them every day. And I miss my sons and their girlfriends and families. Like everyone, I find the physical isolation difficult. I feel disconnected.
Now more than ever, I want to Read, and Read More, and Read More Often. Reading isn't just an escape for me; it's a way to connect with part of myself. Reading is a Solace. I would lose whole chunks of time when I opened a book. Who couldn't use a Fast Forward Button these days?
I would love you to share your childhood Reading Stories. And if you have any tips on Restarting Our Reading, share those, too.
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Stress does a number on our ability to concentrate enough to read. I wish I knew the answer for breaking through the stress to bring books back into your life. For me, changing genres to something that doesn't require picking up subtlety or nuances in character development or plots is helping me to keep on reading. Popcorn books I call them...read them then promptly forget them, nothing worth overloading already overloaded brain cells.
ReplyDeleteJean--It sure does! Many commenters have said the same thing--light reading for now, for these times, is the best thing. I love your term Popcorn Books. It's perfect!
DeleteThe chair I was sent to as a child to consider my sins was one that had a skirt. I hid a book under the skirt. Reading was my life. At present I am rereading things, working through books that are not too difficult. Because I can't concentrate enough to take in anything new. If I do try, I will go to nonfiction ... biography, anthropology. I liked one called 'Walls, A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick' by David Frye. It is a chapter at a time type of information. (The Chinese built too many damn walls!) Fiction easy read ... Georgette Heyer's 'A Civil Contract' or 'Venetia'.
ReplyDeleteI do not know whether the stress is going to go down or up. The Foreign Affairs daughter just got two planeloads of Canadian citizens out of Pakistan, I have no idea how. I wish she could get herself out, the hospitals there being pretty scary mostly, I think.
How are your fingernails. Mine are somewhat chewed.
Mary G--My mother, the quotidian disciplinarian, would have noticed immediately had I sneaked a peek at any pages in the chair. She equated Reading with Doing Nothing Productive, yet she knew it was my one true Pleasure.
DeleteI prefer nonfiction as well. I like the 19th century, President and Mary Lincoln, and science of that period. I was reading The Hidden Life Of Trees...until I wasn't.
Your daughter...! I don't suppose she can get me five cases of wine from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Ohio, can she? ;-)
My fingernails are always short, so nothing to chew. It is my neck and shoulders that carry all my stress, and they are sore and tight. While that used to be familiar years ago, I had gotten rid of that recently. I'm working on it.
I do believe that Mr Ford, our Ontario Premier, has declared shops that sell alcohol to be an essential service. I bet you can order your wine. Note that Mr Trump's bid to stop the USA shipping masks to Canada will not trigger retaliation. But the next time he visits up here, someone might just not clap for him. Since he requires applause, he will be better off not to come. The rest of you are welcome. I hope you get your wine - before she was a diplomat, the YD was a logistics officer in our Army reserve. I bet Pakistan never knew what hit them.
DeleteHot bean bags on the neck are helping JG.
When I first had chemotherapy I got what I called "chemo brain" when I could not concentrate on a complex book or movie plot. It was very scary since I typically have three books in process. One thing that helped me was to move to simpler books, typically light mysteries and childhood favorites like the Little House books or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or any book I loved so much it was familiar. The thing that may have helped most was to load a book on my Kindle Fire and the buy the audio from Audible and load it on the same. The Kindle Fire follows the audio by highlighting the words as the narrator reads them so you have a visual as well as the audio. (I personally hate the text-to-speech computer generated audio which is free but irritating.) I decided I would not be frustrated at my inability to read and follow complex movie plots unless I had to switch to Harlequin romance books and Hallmark movies. Fortunately as the chemo was stopped, my concentration returned to normal and with this round of chemo for the recurrence, chemo brain has not been a problem. Good luck with your stress management techniquess and hope you can return to full reading again.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn--Lovely to see you here, and I'm so glad this round of treatment has not had the side effect of brain fog.
DeleteYou make a good point in that you chose not to be frustrated. That is something I need to do. I need to make the best of this and turn my energy toward things I CAN do. In the meantime, I will try the lighter, familiar reading, but not dwell on being unable to fully enjoy weightier books. That time will come again.
I have the same problem with my Knitting right now. I can’t seem to focus on any big projects so I’ve been working on simple ones. I’ve been working on dish cloths they are small and easily finished and the pattern is simple. It helps me focus. So I would say go back to the beloved books. The ones that you really Know by heart and could read without even reading them. Go back to the simple books, and the books of your childhood. Comfort food, comfort books, comfort knitting.
ReplyDeleteThat is what I have been doing. Good advice. I have two unfinished baby sweaters partly knit. The baby for whom they were intended will turn 17 next month. I wonder if I can figure out how to finish. There will be babies again.
DeleteDiabetes...Family--Hello! It's good to see you in Comments again. I did think of getting back to knitting on my mitred square blanket. It's simple and I've done dozens of squares already. The thing is quite sizeable. And I do have some best-loved books that I can pick up and read as well. I guess I am afraid to fail at even those. But really, that's no reason not to try.
DeleteMary--The 17-year old baby might have a baby one day! LOL.
DeleteFiguring out how to finish an abandoned project is the worst. I have one now, and I will have the same problem. And I detest ripping back should I make the inevitable mistake.
I want to read more fiction but cannot make myself do so. I understand your troubles. That being said I think we need to give ourselves a break. There's nothing about the world today at the age we are that is anything I ever imagined. I struggle to keep up with technology and people and politics, not really wanting to but knowing I have to do so to survive.
ReplyDeleteAlly Bean--I agree that we need to be forgiving of ourselves at this time. Nothing is normal, and we (those of us with any sense, anyway) all feel concern and some fear for the future. It's not like we have any comfort in knowing that we have competent federal leadership.
DeleteOh, I hope your book break ends. I used to read a LOT. But then came knitting and I cannot read as much if I want to knit more. I loved books in my 20s. I was finally able to read what I WANTED to read. So many nurses I knew gave me great book recommendations. It is a frightening time and i hope you will find solace in a book soon. I enjoy reading comedy books. Im basically reading a comedian's stand up show, but I once howled out loud on a jittery airplane reading Jim Gaffigans' book .
ReplyDeletekathy b--I do, too. I miss reading so much.
DeleteI have read a few comedy books: Steve Martin, Dave Barry, Jerry Seinfeld. I read mostly nonfiction, but lately have read some decent contemporary fiction. I used to read Stephen King in my 20s.
I'm a big fan of Jim Gaffigan and his stand-up. Do you know he has a nightly YouTube show called Dinner With The Gaffigans? He livestreams his family dinner every night!
We were so much alike as children! Winter vacation from school and I would come home with armloads of books from the library (and it was never enough for the entire vacation). Trips to the library were my favorite. I remember one year making a "seat" in a tree that overhung the lake we went to in VT. I spent hours reading there.
ReplyDeleteAlso like you, I went through a spell earlier this year where I just couldn't read. I called it my slump. Not sure what or why that happened, but NOTHING appealed to me. That finally began to ease up a bit and along came the pandemic and once again I'm not reading. Concentration is not there.
I have found, that it is easier for me to read (and comprehend and remember what I read) a "real" book as opposed to an e-book. Not sure why. I sure hope this ends soon.
Vera--It certainly sounds like we were kindred spirits as kids. About the only place I didn't read was in the car; I got terrible car sickness on any long rides even without reading.
DeleteI like your terminology and will call this a Reading Slump. I've never done much with digital books, so that's not a Thing with me. I've always been a hardback book kind of girl.
Fingers crossed for us both that we see our Slumps end soon.
Dee--Oh, Dee. I'm so sorry about the situation with your father-in-law. That is fraught with so much stress that it's overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for this reminder. We are more similar than you know! Back in 2011, before you were a Reader here, I wrote this entry. It seems I have to take not only your advice, but my own. ;-)
I'm reading in snatches, spurred on by library deadlines (although recently I've had to renew FOUR different books that I didn't get read in time - two of which I had to put back on hold & wait a while before getting again). It helps that I love audiobooks & am still having to go to work so I get that "reading" in during the week. My current book is Varina by Charles Frazier (the Cold Mountain author). I was never very interested in Varina Davis, but this book is really good!
ReplyDeleteI hope you can get over this slump & that reading will bring you the joy that you deserve. But even if it takes a while that is totally understandable in our current cluster!
Bug--Even though it is right and proper that they be closed, isn't it heartbreaking that libraries are shuttered? So many children benefit from spending time there, especially those in tough home environments. I worry for kids in violent or neglectful home situations during this lockdown.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you're reading and have found a book that's engaged you. I hope I will very soon.
Hey Nance, I SO know what you are talking about. I carry my book from room to room with me in the hopes of sitting down to read, and I actually DO read a paragraph or two at a time right before bed, but it’s annoying because I can’t concentrate and I can’t remember anything that I read. So I suspect at the end of the book, I won’t remember what it was about. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI may jump over to my comfort books soon...A Little Princess, Little House, Narnia, stuff like that.
J@jj.com--I took a look at the books in my stack, the new ones that I was given as gifts. They're not chipper and light. They'd probably be engrossing, but I don't need struggles and sadnesses right now, no matter how uplifting the message might be at their end.
DeleteAnd the Memory thing--the Concentration being fragmented and my overall Distraction, as you described--bothers me so much! My mother has Alzheimer's, and her isolation right now is having a deleterious effect that I can notice when I call or Face Time her. I automatically apply that to my own future.
So I think I'll grab my old comfort books, too, like my three Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary. I'm hoping they'll truly comfort me in many ways.
Hang in there, Julie. Looks like California is seeing some reward for its sacrifice. XO
Enjoyed your earlier pieces in this series. Living alone with no one to receive my either mundane or profound comments, I find that writing them has value. One night recently, I wasn't worrying, but a multitude of thoughts were tumbling around in my brain and I couldn't seem to go to sleep. I finally got up, came to the living room, and just began to write them all on my computer's Word page. Relieved of the words, I returned to bed and sleep.
ReplyDeleteI've had to gear my reading to my mood. Discovered I could not keep focused on unread non-fiction books I had acquired some time ago with such enthusiasm and was finally getting around to reading, or so I thought. So, I set them aside. I have begun flitting from one mostly lighter reading genre to another including biographies, mysteries, to see what clicks. Right now I'm reading nothing, but have a book coming later this week that is pure fiction, so we'll see.
I, too, was an avid reader beginning when I was young. I made regular visits to the library the years we lived in town, catching the city bus all by myself for the trip downtown. My mother appreciated what it meant to be enthralled in a story. She understood that one really had to find a proper place to stop reading when other responsibilities called. She generally allowed me to put off immediately responding to her call until I reached that "stopping place." However, she did nick name me "Little Miss Wait-a-Minute". Mostly I did not abuse her consideration, but once in a while I confess that I cheated by taking longer than I needed to close the book before starting the assigned chore.
Joared--I think you've put your finger on the value of personal journaling. It is a tangible repository for your troublesome worries and thoughts, and it gives you a place to unwind some tangles that you need to think through. It really does unburden you.
DeleteI picked up my old Ramona Quimby books--Beverly Cleary writes for grade-schoolers, really, but she has definitely a subtle edge in there that is rewarding to older readers--and started in on one of those. It is enjoyable, but easy to put down, so I'm definitely not In Reading Mode.
Your use of the word "enthralled" is perfect. That is exactly what I'm missing.
Bless your mom for understanding that you had to find the Stopping Place, a place all Readers know only too well. And she probably understood that you stretched out your Reading Time more than once, too. But she knew that chore would get done, and you being able to read was better than ending it in resentment and tackling the task with less than good spirits.
Interesting that you mentioned journaling. I was always leery of doing so lest my journal somehow be read by someone else. Some years ago a friend who taught creative writing at a local University gave me a blank paged journal for obvious reasons. I wrote the first page guardedly with vague wordings only I would understand. Shortly afterward, our house was broken into. My journal was taken from the drawer of my night stand. That convinced me to not keep a journal for sure.
DeleteJoared--How awful! Firstly, to have your home burglarized, and then to have your personal journal stolen. I never considered that. What kind of thief takes a journal? How very odd.
ReplyDeleteI had the exact same childhood experience with reading. Books were an escape, an adventure, and a comfort zone like no other. Reading under the covers with a flashlight? Got caught doing that more than once. My mother was constantly after me, especially during the summer months, to 'get outside and make some friends.' But I had all the friends I needed as I gobbled up one book after another. My favorite part of every week was The Trip to the Public Library. (They also let me sneak out with a few books over the limit, lol.)
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago, I stopped reading altogether as well. (Except for news, which was a very bad idea then, and an even worse one now.) I was so burned out with all the intense reading I had to do in grad school (while teaching simultaneously), that it took the joy out of it. (And admittedly, there were certain assigned books that, uh, I would never have read otherwise.)
A few years ago I got a Kindle and really enjoyed being able to push a button and get an e-book. I found, though, that after a while, I really preferred turning paper pages. I lose my focus too easily during 'virtual reading.' There's something about the physical *real* book that is somehow comforting. I like seeing the fat chunk of pages I have gone through; more satisfying, somehow, than just a number in the corner of a screen telling me I have completed 48% of the book.
Alas, I have no tips on re-starting reading. Except perhaps to start with short stories? That once helped me, although everyone is different. Regardless of how and when you get back to reading, at least you know from past experience that eventually you will. I don't think anyone who has ever truly loved reading... will not somehow find their way back to it.
Ortizzle--We're so similar in so many, many ways, My Friend. I love that.
DeleteI know so many people who use an e-reader and love it. And I see the convenience and utility in it. You can carry so many books at once! It's available all the time. You can even listen to books.
But I'm in love with the whole Book Experience. Like you, I love the act of turning a page. I like holding A Book. I even like that sort of anxious-yet-satisfying feeling of seeing the few pages left on the right, signaling that I'm almost done with A Book.
I'm not much of a short story reader. The American short story became such an odd duck of a form post WWII. Many of them are just...weird. I did have success rereading my Ramona books, so I may be able to start one more familiar book, a best-loved one (TBD), before I jump into one of my new ones.
So lovely to see you here again. XO