Reader. 39.
My mom said I struggled to read as a little girl, but all I remember is reading. From whatever age the letters became words, reading has been my go-to, my escape, my luxury, my learning, my door, my hobby, my gluttony. My preference.
Reading is why my first job was at a used bookstore, alphabetizing (and smelling) old books. It’s why in pre-marital counseling, my chief concern with Matt was that he would crowd into my reading space. It’s why libraries were the only place I felt steady as a new mom, picking books I knew my boys would like. It’s why two years ago, when Tommy asked me to read Elephant & Piggie, assigning each of us a part and acting his out in full-body play, I had my first (of what would become many) exhales. He was and will be fine. He has an imagination.
Because that’s the deal with reading. If you can’t translate the words on the page into mind scenes, it won’t be your jam. As a writer, I rely on the reader to meet my imagination with her own, and it was in writing that I started to appreciate how good of a reader I am. I’m not talking test scores; I’m talking the attention I give it. The imagination I bring to it.
It’s 110% – a real problem when you’re raising small children and literally can’t hear them going Lord of the Flies in the next room because you are reading. I think I knew this was coming when I was pregnant with Jesse and making choices to read through the biggest fiction I could find (And Ladies of the Club, Atlas Shrugged). I knew my reading days, as I understood them to Age 27, were numbered, and that I was soon to become like my Grandma, who in the rare times I saw her with a book, that book was open on her chest and she was snoring.
It’s an image I guess I’ve presented enough times to Jesse that he took to heckling me, and like any good mother, I challenged him to a reading competition. Looking back, I should not have measured this by page count, or if I did, I should have established ratios to equalize the discrepancy in font sizes. I didn’t, and by the end of that first week, he was beating me so badly that I quit, draping myself in the Mantle of Mommy Martyrdom.
Of course you won. Look at all your freedoms! You’re reading Rick Riordan while I empty the dishwasher. My paycheck, which I earn by working while you’re reading, will pay for the inevitable late fee of that library book you will inevitably lose under your bed. And by the way, I literally taught you how to read at MY breast while I fed you milk from MY body, so I would wipe that smirk off your face.
I think I made some good points. Breastmilk is a solid closer for any argument with men, but I saw something else in my list of grievances, which stretched much longer in the actual Farewell, You Won, but I Think You’re a Jerk speech to Jesse. I saw myself saying how much I loved reading but making choices to do other things. Empty the dishwasher, for instance. And, I saw that the choice to lay low in my reading so I could raise babies to boys, had expired. They were now, all of them, at an age where they could empty the dishwasher while I read on the couch.
Which is all to say that “read” makes my daily list now – not as an end-of-day sprint to sleep, but as a choice in the morning and afternoon on the weekdays and weekends. I want them to catch me reading. I want me to catch me reading. I want to win my next reading competition, and this time I’m going to establish font-size ratios and many chores to fill up the boys’ days. I am going to use my paycheck to fund a babysitter to move them through said chores while I go somewhere, read, and win this thing.
Because at 40, I’m thinking about legacy and what I want these boys saying about me.
She did okay.
She read a lot.
One time, she challenged us to a reading competition and lost.
The next time …
I WON! I better win.
