True Confessions. I did not finish The God Who is There by Schaeffer, hence no write up. It's deep and wide. Well worth it but not something read quickly (at least not by me). I started Byzantium, too, but somehow the 800 pages seemed more like a threat than a reward of rich words and ideas by a master storyteller.
I'm not sure if I'll make the 52/Yr this year. I've been in a slump since Dad's funeral. It's just been hard to read. Which is weird. He taught me to read. When I was 4. He taught Sue that year too, in the fall. He got a phonics program from somewhere and would sit down with her each night. She had a chart with stars on it for progress made. How I envied her those stars- gold and blue and red- just beautiful! The chart was on the side of the fridge and I passed it several times a day, taunting me with her progress. So I begged and pleaded and was irritating, I'm sure, and Dad finally showed me the program. Short "A", then lists, "at, bat, cat, fat, mat," etc. I didn't get a chart, or stars. Bummed me out.
The first book I ever read, just days after my short "A" list was about a witch. She was not creepy or odd, just silly and a bit uncoordinated. I resonated cause while I have killer eye-hand coordination, foot coordination is not my forte. I imagined that this was the silly little witches problem as well, which was why she couldn't steer her broom correctly. I ran across that book in the library lately and felt reunited with an old and important friend.
I've read thousands of books since then. Maybe millions of words. It was a great gift Dad gave me, reading. Once I cracked the code there was no holding me back and Sue and I read fast and furiously, sharing books, trading them, stealing them from each other on vacations, pilfering adult fiction as well that really had no place on our reading lists at all, reading cereal boxes and magazines and pretty much anything with print on it, sharing the gift of reading and words well into adulthood. And Dad, too. Always recommending a book, or an author, or a web-site or an idea.
Now, somehow, for the first time ever, reading just seems like tedious work. Hard and difficult. sigh.
I'm not sure if I'll make the 52/Yr this year. I've been in a slump since Dad's funeral. It's just been hard to read. Which is weird. He taught me to read. When I was 4. He taught Sue that year too, in the fall. He got a phonics program from somewhere and would sit down with her each night. She had a chart with stars on it for progress made. How I envied her those stars- gold and blue and red- just beautiful! The chart was on the side of the fridge and I passed it several times a day, taunting me with her progress. So I begged and pleaded and was irritating, I'm sure, and Dad finally showed me the program. Short "A", then lists, "at, bat, cat, fat, mat," etc. I didn't get a chart, or stars. Bummed me out.
The first book I ever read, just days after my short "A" list was about a witch. She was not creepy or odd, just silly and a bit uncoordinated. I resonated cause while I have killer eye-hand coordination, foot coordination is not my forte. I imagined that this was the silly little witches problem as well, which was why she couldn't steer her broom correctly. I ran across that book in the library lately and felt reunited with an old and important friend.
I've read thousands of books since then. Maybe millions of words. It was a great gift Dad gave me, reading. Once I cracked the code there was no holding me back and Sue and I read fast and furiously, sharing books, trading them, stealing them from each other on vacations, pilfering adult fiction as well that really had no place on our reading lists at all, reading cereal boxes and magazines and pretty much anything with print on it, sharing the gift of reading and words well into adulthood. And Dad, too. Always recommending a book, or an author, or a web-site or an idea.
Now, somehow, for the first time ever, reading just seems like tedious work. Hard and difficult. sigh.
3 comments:
I get the same way when I'm burned out. :-( I love you!!!
What a wonderful gift your father gave you. Words open doors of the world to us and take us places our feet may never lead us to. Beauiful memory. I lost my dad earlier this year to cancer.
(((HUG))) Sweet memories...they'll keep you going!
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