Since when did reading become a guilty pleasure? When I was a kid,
summertime, to me, meant two things: visiting my grandparents in Southern
Virginia, and lots and lots of reading. Of course, at that time, I also read
throughout the rest of the year, but come summer, I would fill my backpack up
with a whole stack of books (even then my greatest fear was running out of
reading supplies), visit libraries in two separate states on opposite
coastlines, and settle in for a couple months of real, unadulterated reading.
Reading was my summer pastime and the places I read were their own small
adventures: in a tree; in Granny’s rock garden, laid out on one of the flat, sun-kissed
stones; by the creek; on the deck with a lap full of fuzzy new kittens; in the
Green room closet-turned-library; on the antique couch in the living room; in
the car on the way to some other delightful summer excursion. It wasn’t s
filler, something I snuck in between other important and fun activities when
there wasn’t enough time to do anything else. It was a thing in and of itself. It was
the important and fun activity. Nothing said I’ve earned this rest like settling in and reading a whole book,
start to finish, without budging, except maybe to give your learning elbow a
rest, or brush a tiny beetle off your ankle.
Even when I
got older, and our family trips to Roanoke became less frequent, Summer still
meant reading, on the beach, then, or in Bogart’s coffee shop, or in my yellow
bedroom with Bingo (the bird) perched on my shoulder, sometimes with some
studying thrown in, maybe, once standardized tests became a way of getting
somewhere, but still more reading than studying. Which brings me to yesterday,
on my couch in Kansas City, older still, now, and still reading, but, it struck
me suddenly, in a very different way. I had two and a half hours from the time
I got home from my first scheduled event to the time I had to leave for my
second scheduled event. (Scheduled events, I have found, are a thing that
adults presumably created in order to enrich their lives and make easier the
bondages of adulthood responsibilities, but they have actually, from what I can
tell, greatly reduced our existence to droll appointment keeping, like we are
secretaries, instead of masters, of our own lives.) Anyway, I had two and a
half hours to – I don’t know – address wedding invitations, or clean the
kitchen, do laundry, study for the PRAXIS (the standardized test that, due to a
technicality, has reentered my life, cost me one hundred forty six dollars, and
wasted hour of my time), make more appointments, plan dinner, or – well, you
know the list; you likely have one of your own. But I sat down, instead, to
read. Guiltily. And it was the guilt that surprised me. My summer break began
nearly a week ago and I had not once in that time sat down to read a book for longer
than thirty minutes. So when my book-absorption hit forty five minutes, I began
to feel anxious, not because I was sick of reading, but because I felt a
responsibility to be doing something else. And by an hour in, I had reached a
full on state of guilt. Like entire cities were crumbling around me while I did
nothing. Like I could have been saving the lives of innocent babies, but was
instead lolling about on my sofa engaged in a mere story. An hour of reading
and I felt as though I had squandered any productivity the day had to offer. No
wonder people don’t read anymore. If I, a reader by trade, a person who
believes stories are innately essential to meaningful human existence, can’t
make it through an hour of reading without feeling extravagantly lazy, then who
does?
I hate to
admit it, but I watch The Bachelor. I
have a perfectly valid justification for doing so, if anyone wants to hear it
(which no one ever does; evidently nobody really cares why – or that – I choose
to waste an hour of my life once a week indulging in scripted fantasies of
spontaneous love). So I don’t talk about it much. I’m a little embarrassed by
it and so I prefer to indulge in that embarrassment alone – or with select
people who expressly wish to join in it with me. And yet, when I sit down to
watch The Bachelor, I generally watch
it all the way through, on my couch, with a snack and a blanket, dinner and
grading papers be damned. So why is this real guilty pleasure an easy hour
spent and the reading of a great book unjustifiable to my conscience?
Most of
what I remember of elementary school is recess and reading (except Kindergarten
during which I vividly remember using staples, tape, and stickers to make
extraordinary pieces of useless art; and a few distinct memories of writing compositions
too long for anybody to read; and, of course, my first poem in second grade
which set me on the path to becoming a writer.) In elementary school, reading
was also an adventure. We read in our seats and on the carpet. We read alone to
ourselves, we read to each other, we read in reading groups, and we were read
to. Daily. Reading was the thing. It
was (at least part of) the lesson for the day. Education theory will tell you
that around third grade, we shift from “learning to read” to “reading to
learn.” Certainly, by high school, reading is no longer the thing anymore; it is instead a means to
an end. By high school, we have also stopped reading together, for the most
part. (Interestingly, the excerpts from novels my high school English teachers
reread aloud to us still stand out distinctly in my mind – the teacher’s
reading mannerisms, their voices, the discovery of something in the story I had
not heard before. Even then, being read to was a sacred affair.) By high
school, reading is homework. Writing
that word recalls to mind Mark Twain’s wise observation that, “Work and play
are two words used to describe the same thing under different circumstances.” By
the time I was in high school, reading, regardless of whether it was homework
or not, was a joy to me, but I don’t think the same is true for most people. By
high school, we have taken all the play out of reading, and along with it, the
indulgence, the relaxation, the intrigue, the sense of self-gain. We have
relegated it to work.
And now I
work in a school, assigning reading work to my students each night. I also have
a bad tendency to be a hover teacher. At times when students are supposed to be
working and thinking independently or with each other, I have a strong urge to
hover. To circulate the room, butting in, prompting, answering questions they
should be answering on their own. They will tell you that hovering is good
teacher practice, but I have learned from experience that that is only
partially true. Equally as important is providing space between. Students will
take anything you will give them to try to come up with your thoughts instead of their own. And most of them are practiced
in this luring of other peoples’ ideas because they have found it to be easier
and less scary than coming up with their own. If you refuse to say words, they
will read your face instead, and your body language, and will snatch answers –
rightly or wrongly – anyway from what you are not saying, without thinking
about them at all. But if you remove yourself from their direct access, make
yourself small and unobtrusive in the corner, both inertia and social stigma
will encourage them to use their own minds and each others’ to develop new thoughts,
instead of the teacher’s old ones. Hover teachers get answers, but usually they
are merely their own – or a perversion of their own – spoken back to them.
So what do
I do in the spaces that I try to force myself to allow my students? I work. I
do the innumerable tasks that come up unpredictably in the daily life of a
teacher, and I do the more routine ones, like taking role and grading papers. And
every once in a blue moon, I find myself caught up – momentarily – on all of
those things and I take out a book to read. And inevitably, I feel guilty. Maybe I should hover more, I think to
myself (though it has only been thirty seconds since I last hovered). Maybe I should check my email again, or
lesson plan for next month. Maybe I should reorganize, or regrade, or make a
new seating chart. What part of a reading, a well-read, high school English
teacher is detrimental to students? What part of my job description delegates
that I don’t waste time reading? When has a reference to something I have read
ever diminished a conversation I have had, with students or other people? Not
only that, but when has a happy and fulfilled person ever been worse at her
job, as a teacher or a citizen of society? And yet, reading during class, as an English teacher, makes me feel
guilty.
Adulthood
is not easy, but it’s also, sometimes, not wise. And I’d like to see what would
happen to our society if we took a little more extended time to book read and a
little less to rant, or cell phone, or hurry around. It’s hard to imagine that
things would take a turn for the worse. If delving into a story is wasted time,
then so, it seems, by extension, is taking the time to think divergently, to
grow in compassion, to build new ambitions. If laundry is a more important
adult task than reading a book, what happens to greatness and community and
innovation?
I fought
the guilt. I finished my book. And it was great. It made me feel proud and
patriotic and hopeful over things and times I will never experience myself. I
didn’t even notice the unclean laundry. Neither did Jason. Neither did the
world. Maybe laundry should be the guilty pleasure. As in: why am I wasting
time folding clothes that I’m about to unfold again when I could be reading a
book; expanding my worldview; building something with my hands; dancing with a
forlorn child; creating a feet of engineering genius; painting a reflection of
God’s greatness; helping the impoverished; or sitting by a campfire watching
for shooting stars, just because that kind of faith and soul-renewing is what
makes living life worthwhile. What kind of adult wisdom makes reading, of all things, a guilty
pleasure?
-R.E.A.
