I am, of course, talking about books (reading them, as opposed to editing them). I learnt to read when I was three years old. Since then, reading had been so much a part of my daily life that I frequently suffered from insomnia unless I read something before bed, even as a child. I read freakishly fast, with varied taste. I have just one bookshelf here in Sydney (which is overflowing as it is), but I have many more boxes of books in storage back in Queensland.
Lately, I've felt like I'm missing something. It's been months since I've had that drive to read, where I can spend hours curled up with a novel, where I think about the story when I'm not reading and dive back in the first chance I get, where I stay up far too late 'just finishing the chapter'. Instead I've picked up books halfheartedly, almost as afterthoughts. My thoughts drift, and I have to reread a paragraph because I've taken nothing in. I have maybe five or six books that I am reading at once, because I'm not fully invested in any one of them and I keep thinking the next one will grab me more.
This is almost frightening to me, because reading is the one thing I am so completely sure of. It's my first love, my unconditional love, something so tied to my identity and self-concept that my quarter-sleeve tattoo features books prominently (as I tell people, there aren't many things I can feel sure enough about to have on my body permanently; my love for books is the only thing that will never change in my whole life). I feel alien to myself.
Perhaps I'm just having a bad run of choosing the wrong books to read, and I just haven't picked up anything amazing for a while (as I said in a radio interview I did last year: unread books make me anxious, and guilty; I feel they are calling to me from the shelf, accusatory, relentless; I have piles of them right now). Perhaps I need to take a reading holiday and pick up something easily digestible and painless. Perhaps I can blame it, again, on editing, because certainly after reading a book all day at work I sometimes didn't feel like reading in my leisure time. For sure, I've become more attached to technology of late (my laptop, my iphone) and indulging in my nerd gamer side (flash games mostly, I'm no Warcrafter, though I suspect I could be if I had a go; I don't trust myself with something other people find addictive because I am very addiction prone). So by the time I shut the lid on my laptop late at night my eyes are sore and I'm ready to just fall into bed. And here I am, a vocal advocate for paper and ink books rather than seeing them swallowed up by the digital revolution.
I miss reading. I miss my best friend, the book, my constant companion. I have time I dreamed about when I was snowed under at work, where I could, if my conscience allowed, spend all day in bed reading if I wanted to. I miss wanting to.
No comments:
Post a Comment