 | It was a hard year, and I lost my reading groove. Usually, reading is a constant in my life. I read on the subway, in my green armchair, in the kitchen waiting for pasta to get to al dente, in bed, in waiting rooms. I devour novels and nonfiction books on social issues, spirituality, history, and sometimes a good biography or memoir. Reading is my thing. |
We had traveled around the world for a year, my husband and youngest son and I. I read a lot in preparation for the year of travel, and I continued to read a lot while we traveled-- books on places we’d visit, their history and culture and languages. I read up on homeschooling so that I could educate our son during his year off from formal schooling. I read books on religion by Barbara Taylor Brown and N. T. Wright because I was in mid-life spiritual turmoil, and needed to find my new normal. I read up on autism in adults when it became clear that my aloof, ultra-sensitive husband was on the autism spectrum and needed my help. I read Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here and re-read 1984 because it looked like America was following a disturbing trend foretold in literature. I read books on living abroad because we were planning to move to France. I read a lot that year.
Then we moved into our new home in France, and I love my reading groove. I should have felt at peace because I’d worked out my spiritual turmoil, my husband had come to terms with autism, homeschooling was over, and I had educated myself on moving abroad. It should have been time to relax, but I couldn’t.
Not only could I not read, my brain was taxed by the fact that, as our family’s most capable French speaker, I had to speak French all the time. My high school French was sadly lacking in real-life situations, but I steeled myself and did it anyway. I talked to the French wifi people, cell phone people, delivery people, visa people, waiters, clerks, repairmen, butchers, bakers, cheesemongers, fishmongers, pharmacists. It was exhausting.
There seemed to be a cramp in my brain. I tried fiction, rereading many first chapters before giving up. I tried spirituality and history, but nothing seemed relevant. My brain was tired. Not even lightweight humorous memoirs appealed to me. I felt useless and aimless and restless, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I tried tv but that didn’t fill the hole in my soul. I couldn’t sleep.
Not reading was killing me. The need to sit still, looking at words left to right, turning pages, was burning me up. I had to do something. With such a tired brain, I knew I couldn’t stretch myself. I needed an easy book, a page turner that didn’t tax me. Something soothing, yet intriguing. Something that interested me but didn’t upset my delicate apple cart.
Then I saw on my bookshelf what could fulfill that need. Harry Potter.
I’ve been a Harry Potter fan since I first read it with my kids, and I reread it for pleasure when they got too old to be read to. It might be marketed as children’s literature, but it is storytelling at its finest, and that’s what I needed.
The first time you read the Harry Potter series, it’s a great story. When you reread it, you are touched by the details that you didn’t realize were clues the first time around: Sirius Black’s motorcycle and Snape’s brooding countenance and Harry’s first Snitch. You linger over the lovely sentences that you skimmed over the first time, because now you aren’t feverishly trying to get to the end--you’re savoring. Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
So I reread Harry Potter, knowing that the words were my friends and would not jolt me or take me somewhere I didn’t want to go. They began to carry me, gently but firmly. Not only that, but this time, Harry Potter took on a new dimension. The characters spoke to me as they never had before. They spoke to parallel situations in my life.
Since I read the books the first time, my daughter has gone through severe depression, and when Mrs. Weasley screamed Not my daughter you bitch I knew exactly what she meant. I had screamed Not my daughter you bitch into the void of my daughter’s depression many times, when I brought her her meds and a cup of water, when I sat in the psychiatrist’s waiting room, when I helped her get out of bed and go to school. I will fight to the death anyone or anything who endangers my children, just like Molly Weasley did.
Snape’s complex love for Lily Potter always intrigued me, but this time I saw something new. When Snape was dying, he asked Harry to look at him. Harry had Lily’s eyes, and Snape wanted nothing other than to look at Lily as he died. Harry’s eyes were the closest thing. Now I see how loving someone draws you to the people who resemble them, even if the resemblance is faint.
The love of Harry’s mother protected him, and I have experienced that kind of love from my grandmother. Even though her love was not a magic charm, it was a thing of such strength and surety and purity that it has gotten me through many difficult times. If someone as wonderful as my grandmother loved me so intensely, I cannot be damaged by the hurtful words or actions of other less relevant people.
My eyes glided back and forth over the words, and I didn’t even feel myself turning the pages. I had my groove back. I grew stronger, and I got to know myself a little better.
When I finished Harry Potter, I was ready to try grown-up books again. Gingerly, I dipped my toe into new fiction with Deborah Elaine Kennedy’s Tornado Weather, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then I tried something a little more challenging, Edith Wharton’s classic The House of Mirth. Even though we’ve come a long way, baby, women still engage in a constant tug of war with misery and ruin in our society. Then I tackled Raymond Carver’s short story collection What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, which I loved and hated, but in a good way. Then I was ready for something more challenging, and decided it was time to explore the story that is our history with Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash: The 400-Year Untold Story of Class in America. It tore me up, but I did it. I celebrated my renewed faith with Anne Lamott’s Hallelujah Anyway, a piece of cake after White Trash. Dani Shapiro’s Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage made me think about marriage for the long haul instead of as the final scene in a romantic comedy. Stephen King’s book On Writing made me decide to give writing my all, and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible showed me how complex misguided religion is and how it affects us years later. Amen, sister.
I was back. I was found. I was reading.
So, thank you, JK Rowling, for writing a story that pulled me back from the abyss. Without reading, it’s just too dark and scary out there.
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Then we moved into our new home in France, and I love my reading groove. I should have felt at peace because I’d worked out my spiritual turmoil, my husband had come to terms with autism, homeschooling was over, and I had educated myself on moving abroad. It should have been time to relax, but I couldn’t.
Not only could I not read, my brain was taxed by the fact that, as our family’s most capable French speaker, I had to speak French all the time. My high school French was sadly lacking in real-life situations, but I steeled myself and did it anyway. I talked to the French wifi people, cell phone people, delivery people, visa people, waiters, clerks, repairmen, butchers, bakers, cheesemongers, fishmongers, pharmacists. It was exhausting.
There seemed to be a cramp in my brain. I tried fiction, rereading many first chapters before giving up. I tried spirituality and history, but nothing seemed relevant. My brain was tired. Not even lightweight humorous memoirs appealed to me. I felt useless and aimless and restless, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I tried tv but that didn’t fill the hole in my soul. I couldn’t sleep.
Not reading was killing me. The need to sit still, looking at words left to right, turning pages, was burning me up. I had to do something. With such a tired brain, I knew I couldn’t stretch myself. I needed an easy book, a page turner that didn’t tax me. Something soothing, yet intriguing. Something that interested me but didn’t upset my delicate apple cart.
Then I saw on my bookshelf what could fulfill that need. Harry Potter.
I’ve been a Harry Potter fan since I first read it with my kids, and I reread it for pleasure when they got too old to be read to. It might be marketed as children’s literature, but it is storytelling at its finest, and that’s what I needed.
The first time you read the Harry Potter series, it’s a great story. When you reread it, you are touched by the details that you didn’t realize were clues the first time around: Sirius Black’s motorcycle and Snape’s brooding countenance and Harry’s first Snitch. You linger over the lovely sentences that you skimmed over the first time, because now you aren’t feverishly trying to get to the end--you’re savoring. Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
So I reread Harry Potter, knowing that the words were my friends and would not jolt me or take me somewhere I didn’t want to go. They began to carry me, gently but firmly. Not only that, but this time, Harry Potter took on a new dimension. The characters spoke to me as they never had before. They spoke to parallel situations in my life.
Since I read the books the first time, my daughter has gone through severe depression, and when Mrs. Weasley screamed Not my daughter you bitch I knew exactly what she meant. I had screamed Not my daughter you bitch into the void of my daughter’s depression many times, when I brought her her meds and a cup of water, when I sat in the psychiatrist’s waiting room, when I helped her get out of bed and go to school. I will fight to the death anyone or anything who endangers my children, just like Molly Weasley did.
Snape’s complex love for Lily Potter always intrigued me, but this time I saw something new. When Snape was dying, he asked Harry to look at him. Harry had Lily’s eyes, and Snape wanted nothing other than to look at Lily as he died. Harry’s eyes were the closest thing. Now I see how loving someone draws you to the people who resemble them, even if the resemblance is faint.
The love of Harry’s mother protected him, and I have experienced that kind of love from my grandmother. Even though her love was not a magic charm, it was a thing of such strength and surety and purity that it has gotten me through many difficult times. If someone as wonderful as my grandmother loved me so intensely, I cannot be damaged by the hurtful words or actions of other less relevant people.
My eyes glided back and forth over the words, and I didn’t even feel myself turning the pages. I had my groove back. I grew stronger, and I got to know myself a little better.
When I finished Harry Potter, I was ready to try grown-up books again. Gingerly, I dipped my toe into new fiction with Deborah Elaine Kennedy’s Tornado Weather, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then I tried something a little more challenging, Edith Wharton’s classic The House of Mirth. Even though we’ve come a long way, baby, women still engage in a constant tug of war with misery and ruin in our society. Then I tackled Raymond Carver’s short story collection What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, which I loved and hated, but in a good way. Then I was ready for something more challenging, and decided it was time to explore the story that is our history with Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash: The 400-Year Untold Story of Class in America. It tore me up, but I did it. I celebrated my renewed faith with Anne Lamott’s Hallelujah Anyway, a piece of cake after White Trash. Dani Shapiro’s Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage made me think about marriage for the long haul instead of as the final scene in a romantic comedy. Stephen King’s book On Writing made me decide to give writing my all, and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible showed me how complex misguided religion is and how it affects us years later. Amen, sister.
I was back. I was found. I was reading.
So, thank you, JK Rowling, for writing a story that pulled me back from the abyss. Without reading, it’s just too dark and scary out there.
PREVIOUS: If You're Going to Greece, go to Crete
NEXT: Angels Unawares