1 post tagged “books”

Barely into my winter break, a whole 4 weeks with no exams, required reading, lewis dot structures, hybrid orbitals, sine functions, nada, and what did I do?  I succumbed to the icky nasty yuckness that has been going around.  I got the friggin flu.  And yes, you could say I asked for it.  I had felt it coming on for several weeks, and I gently but firmly closed the door on the illness with plenty of fluids, decent sleep and wellness formula.  Then it was break time.  The combination of no daily responsibility and nerve-racking family crisis, made me decide that this was a good time to go out drinking like I hadn't drunked in a while.  A couple times even.  Then, yup.  I felt like shit and only half of it was a hangover.

So since then, and we're looking at a whole week now, give or take, I have been layin low.  I've read prolly 1500 pages of Maeve Binchy in the last week.  When I used to work in bookstores I always thought of her books as "old lady books" because that's pretty much who bought them.  And I can see why, they are endearing stories of normal people's lives, just a little it saucy, and of lives that are far from perfect, but with a very definite rose-colored quality. Everyone has tea, all the time.  Things have a way of working out, for the alcoholics, the neglected wives and children, the sad lonely mistresses, and the hard working caterers.  And you know, I absolutely love them. 

Before, I scoffed

at books that didn't challenge or defy.  I always wanted to read something that would set me on edge, add to my anger of an unjust and truly fucked up world.  And I don't want to completely hide from those things.  But I'm not above a little comfort. 

Maybe I'm going completely soft.  But I wonder how un-soft I ever was.  I wanted to read fictionalized accounts of how fucked up things are, things that would evoke emotional response, as well as give me some kind of historical or cultural understanding of something outside of myself.  But I've always avoided the news, politics, real stories of war.  I've always ended up twisted up and paralyzed.  Freaked out.  And now, well, yes, I am at a point where I am willing to admit, I want, I need to be comforted.  Perhaps this is part of the self care stuff I have heard so much about.  "Survivors lack skills in self care, they [you] need to learn to comfort themselves."  So I admit, I like to read comforting books that are written with the purpose of being comforting in mind.  Granted, I'm not reading Chicken Soup for the Soul, and I hope it never comes to that, but I can relate now with the desire to take in a novel just because it feels really good to read it.  Only after dealing with debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, for the last six months (I can't believe it's been that long) do I get it.  Did I think that people who seek comfort in flowery books (other than classics) were trying to deny the ugliness of the world?  Yes, yes I did. But only now, I want to forgive myself for not being willing or able, or strong, or self sacrificing or....whatever enough to take on all the ugliness of the world.  Is it possible to try to find comfort in media and still live genuinely?  I hope so.  I don't want to pretend that the world fine, that there is no need for panic.  Not all of the time.  But sometimes yes, because I need to be able to figure out how I am going to interact with that ugliness, how I am going to try to make it a little better.  And I'm gonna need some energy to do that.  So when it's time to relax, I'm gonna read Maeve Binchy.

So now I get it, and I'm sorry for the way I've acted.  I'm sorry for scoffing at people who bought books with warm and inviting scenes of flowery gardens and cottages on the front.  All of you, who I have mocked behind your backs, I apologize.