James Baldwin and me

Yesterday I did something that was so enjoyable, it practically felt wicked.  I sat down and read for more than an hour.

I'm pretty much always reading something.  Right now I'm halfway through "David Copperfield", and about a fifth of the way through Baldwin's "Another Country", which is what I was reading yesterday.  I love to read, have been a avid reader all my life.  But as an adult, it seems as though the times I read are either when I'm in bed about to fall asleep, or on public transportation, or in a waiting room, or at a restaurant eating by myself.  I almost always arrive early to wherever I'm going just so I'll have some time to read.  I truly can't remember the last time I just sat and read without being on the way to something else.

I guess reading feels indulgent because if I have time to read, then I surely also have time to do something more productive, such a housework, or running errands, or writing, or answering emails, or working out, or just about anything else.  Reading has come to feel like a luxury because it doesn't get me to produce any sort of tangible results, doesn't help the world or improve my home or blah blah blah.  It's one thing I do just for the sheer pleasure of it.

But when I think about, I'm not really being all that productive with my time when I'm not reading.  I do take care of the house and write and all that other stuff, but I also spend a lot of time at my computer just browsing around or playing word games or looking things up.  Surely reading is as profitable as any of that, and no doubt a great deal more so.  There are soooooooo many books I want to read, and I'm simply not going to get to many of them if I don't make reading a priority.

So I'm making reading a priority.  Which means spending less time in front of the computer.  Which I think is going to end up making just about every other part of life better and more sparkly.