Plant seeds. I can still smell the wood of my walk-in closet, turned office, when I was very young. I had a miniature wooden trunk that I placed on the floor and made my desk. I filled it with paper and pencils to write my stories. I wanted to be an author. I was probably eight years old… I published my first flash fiction piece at age 51. That was a lengthy germination period! Do you like a good metaphor? I have one for you:

Live adventurously and take risks. Occasionally I write a list of ‘things I’ve done’. I’m always amazed. I could never say that I don’t suffer from fear, but I can say that I don’t let it get in the way too often. My list doesn’t include parachuting or deep sea diving – those things don’t interest me – but it does include flying planes and living abroad, because those things do. My point is to follow up on interests and curiosities; find the people you need to teach you what you want to know. Fill your days, don’t waste them. Here’s the metaphor – this, these experiences, good and bad, are the manure for your seeds. You know what manure is, yes? The shit, the excrement of your life, which naturally is made of everything you took in, and has had the opportunity to sit quietly, in some dark, warm corner and become gold. 

Books. Books have been incredibly influential to my life experience. I can envision myself now, on the top of a green mountainside in the Alps, arms flung out, singing the praises of books (think Julie Andrews and Sound of Music). I can tell you more about the books I read as a kid than my actual life as a kid!  I learned to fly planes because a book I read strongly piqued my interest. I studied hypnosis because I was intrigued with the profession of a fictional character. My favorite assignments in school were writing book reports (never did I resort to Cliff Notes). 

Books make us feel things and wonder about things and they give us insider information. It’s like when you travel to a new culture and you wander around the cities, maybe you check out the museums and try the local cuisine – maybe you go even deeper and study the history – but you’ll never really know the place unless you live there and learn from the locals; make friends and begin to understand that the history is only part of the story, the architecture only the dressing. It’s the ordinariness of life that allows you to come to really know it. When you have to go to the store to buy dish soap and toilet paper. But… if you never step foot in that country, but only read a good book about a seven year old girl and her adventures at school, for instance, you learn more than you might living there for a year, or ten years. I’ve been saying lately that in order to travel to the places I really want to go, I need a time travel machine. But that’s not true – all I really need is the right book.

My sister was the first person to receive “Memoirs of a Triangle” in print. Two days later, she texted me that she didn’t know if she still had the focus to read a book – that her brain had been ruined by technology – that she needed constant interaction with her phone to quell anxiety. And, sadly, I knew exactly what she meant. I’ve experienced the same affliction – and it happened so quickly! I’ve learned (and I shared this with her) that it just takes a little discipline, that you just have to make yourself put your phone away, and soon it all comes back – and that, at least for me, it is such a relief. The first time I noticed it was probably a year ago. I became aware that instead of falling asleep with a book, which had been my habit for most of my life, I was falling asleep looking at my computer. YUCK! I instantly went to the library and came home with several books. And it was a challenge at first. But the return to reading, while holding the actual pages and getting lost in a story, was like a sip of water after crossing a desert (and I know what that is like because I’ve read about it), or like finally landing on shore after a rough and arduous ocean crossing (which, again, I’ve experienced through the transportation of words). What’s my point? Ironically, I’ve written a book during a time when it seems like they might end up on an endangered list somewhere. Do I want people to read my book? Yes, but more importantly, I want people to read. Period. 

My children devoured books (and yes, these are the very same dyslexic children I mention elsewhere). Our reading rituals were defining, and rich, and so satisfying it’s difficult to describe. Not just written stories, but their oral counterpart as well. And that was very recent history. But now, like everyone I see, across all generations, they rarely have a book in their hands because their phones have taken that place. The ray of hope I have is that both have expressed the desire to read again. They miss it. But it takes discipline to get there, and our discipline is one of the most important things that our phones seem to be robbing from us. 

I’m not a pessimist, or doomsayer. I take life as it comes and tend to look for the positive. I shrug my shoulders a lot. I don’t worry about the fate of humanity too much – if we fuck it up (shoulder shrug)… I believe life is best lived moment by moment, cause, you know, the moment is all that’s really real. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t dream, ponder, plan, and hope – just that hopefully we’re doing those things from a grounded place. It also doesn’t mean I live in fairyland – I have my share of anxieties, and I know we need to protect our water, air, natural resources etc – and I’m all in on that. I just want to approach these things with honest realism and not ideology or theology because I don’t have much interest in either. I also don’t feel comfortable with absolutes.

So… books. Books contain stories that help us understand ourselves and the world around us. They can make us want to be bigger and better versions of ourselves, or lead us into a world previously unknown. They can lighten our mood, or make us pensive and melodramatic. They can get our juices flowing and make us laugh and cry and yearn. The characters become friends and we mourn them when the story comes to its end. Sometimes a book is just a mini vacation from reality and we forget it as soon as we put it down. Obviously, I’m speaking about fiction here, and there’s a wealth of informative literature out there as well, even textbooks – and they hold information that isn’t just gigabytes of data, but knowledge passed from one being to another. 

Read a book maybe. Books smell good. Who doesn’t love the sound of turning pages? There are endless ways and means to a good life, and books are one of them.