Forget lying by the pool, indulging in chocolate croissants every morning, or jogging on the beach. These were great perks of our recent vacation but the real highlight was curling up in the luscious hotel bed and reading….reading, reading, reading with no interruption – pure sweet indulgence.
I know some mothers of young kids still manage to keep up on their literature, but for me, it’s been hard. I’ve always been a habitual reader – often reading late into the night. But after having kids, I’m too wiped. Often, as I’ve previously mentioned, it’s a quick glance at Us Weekly (or the delicious early pages of People before it gets all human interest heavy) and I’m out like a zombie. Gone are the lazy afternoons of getting lost in a novel or staying up till dawn because I can’t put down a book (American Pastoral by Philip Roth comes to mind). The last time I read with that kind of abandon was the month before I had my first child, when I was just home waiting to deliver. I was reading Michael Chabon’s "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and was totally consumed – it’s fantastic by the way and definitely on my top ten fave list.
I bought some books before our trip (including The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai and Suite Francaise), hopeful that I would maybe be able to lose myself in them. The first couple of days were discouraging – I just couldn’t focus on the words…things kept racing through my mind – maybe I should work out, maybe I should check on the kids, maybe I should go swimming, I mean we are on a tropical beach…
On the third day (it took that long for me to surrender to vacation lethargy), I curled into bed after a morning walk, and succeeded in getting lost! The book was "The Time Traveler’s Wife" and it captured my senses enough to carry me away from my real-life worries and into another plane. I was transformed. The whole week, I kept looking for nooks and crannies of time when I could disappear into my book. On the flight home to Toronto, my husband complained that I was "zoned out". Quite the contrary, my dear, I zoned back into my love of reading and…I’m thrilled.
I’m so glad that with such limited time to read that you read, “The Time Traveller’s Wife” Amreen. It is one of my faves. For many adult years, I was a subway rider and I may be one of only a few who will admit to this, but I miss it. Purely because I managed about an hour and half a day of relatively uninterrupted reading time. I still ride the subway when I have to meet my husband downtown. He always encourages me to take a cab, but it moves tooooooo fast to really be a luxury!