Reading without a Pencil

I can't remember when I couldn't read and I don't remember learning to read. It seems I could always open any book I could lay my hands on an read it. I don't have a romanticised Scout Finch memory of reading the nightly paper with my father. I just think I was born reading. I asked my mom if she taught me- she said I just always seemed to know how but she would help me with the hard words.

Through the years my love of reading has served me well.
I could escape into a book when the real life views were not so pleasant.
I could learn as much as I wanted to learn without having to wait for someone to teach me.
and later... I could share these books I love with others.

However, before I could get to the paid sharing, i.e. teaching, I had to read a lot. I learned to read not just for entertainment but for the complex and sometimes narcissistic pleasure of decoding, deconstructing, and critiquing a text. As such a reader, the pencil was always at hand crammed behind my ear, placed as a bookmark, or languishing in my mouth...but always within quick reach to jot a note.

So, since at least Mr Weeks AP Lit class and through four subsequent English departments I have been tagging every book that has passed through my hands in my made up code of understanding.

Today I was reading, The Catcher in the Rye, for no good reason other than I didn't remember the main character's name so that doesn't qualify as having really read it for me. I am about half way through and I realized there is no pencil to be seen. And it was shocking. I am not longer reading for the professor who will engage me or the students I sought out connections for...I am reading for me- the little girl who couldn't keep her hands off of any book.

It has been too long

I have started a thousand blog posts in my head. I am always composing life in some way or another. Some people work in numbers. I work in narratives.

I have to say some of my thoughts have been good; others have been painful, and some I consider to be inspiring. Yet, because they have gone unwritten they have gotten lost in the clutter of my over-filled, under-worked mind.

Interruptions have become a way of life for me. So now I am giving myself permission to interrupt to create space to write.

I hope it will be so....if you could convince my girls it is ok for Mommy to have quiet moment it would be helpful.

Buttercup

Buttercup.
I love that word.
For one, any allusion to The Princess Bride is a win in my book. And, when has any mention of a cup of tasty although indulgent butter been a bad thing? I guess I have a little Paula Dean in me there.
However, the main reason I love buttercup(s) is the bold little flower's proclamation of spring. They are the final lap flag of winter; the first heralds of spring. I love their eagerness. It is like they want to be the first with the t-shirt and concert ticket so they can casually say to the tulips who lag cautiously behind, "Oh, spring. Yeah. I like already bloomed four weeks ago. You know when it was still snowing."
Gotta love their tenacity.
Bloom on little cups of sunshine, bloom on.