For the past two years, I’ve only read a handful of new books. For some reason, I just kept reading books that I had already read, over and over again.
I think it might have played out this way because I, for one reason or another, felt that my life was getting increasingly chaotic. Reading the same books comforted me. In life, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but I know that in the last third of Mistry’s A Fine Balance, I’m going to start shaking my head at the mess that is humankind. Or that somewhere in the last fifty pages of the The Deathly Hallows, I’m going to weep like a runner up for prom queen.
The point is, last week, I put an end to all this. I decided it’s time to read new books by authors I’ve never considered, in genres that, until now, I’ve either ignored or rolled my eyes at. Because predictability, while comforting, does not leave a whole lot of room for expansion of the mind, soul or wit.
Recent post pregnancy weight aside, I’m feeling the need to be expansive these days.
So, I went crazy and bought a slew of books and have neatly placed them in a stack on my nightstand. A reminder, if you will, about my renewed commitment to live outside of my comfort zone.
I was about seven or eight when I got my first library card. I remember the excitement, the expectation, and the inevitable joy of finding new treasures of wisdom, laughter or tears in each book I brought home. I feel like that again when I look at the stack.
Here’s an excerpt from what I read today:
He tapped irritably at a control panel. Trillian quietly moved his hand before he tapped anything important. Whatever Zaphod’s qualities might include — dash, bravado, conceit — he was mechanically inept. He could easily blow up the ship with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. (62)
I sort of love that last line. Can you guess what I’m reading? It shouldn’t be too hard since they made a movie based on it just a few years ago. Have you read this book? What did you think of it?
Also, I read very, very fast, so that stack of four or five books is going to be gone in about a week or two. In the past, I’ve limited myself to classical works, literary fiction, memoirs, personal/spiritual development, history, “ethnic” literature, some young adult and Harry Potter.
I’m trying out other genres, what might you suggest?
This guy goes to study music at this old guy’s house. The guy and the old guy’s daughter fall in love, only to find out that the daughter’s marriage has already been arranged. Hilarity ensues. OK, no, no hilarity. But, it’s a good movie with an interesting perspective on arranged marriages. It’s a great “traditional” movie.
3. Guru (2007)
A polyester manufacturer embodies every capitalists dream come true. Plus he finds true love. Um. Come to think of it, it sounds more boring than it actually is. And, anyway, I just love this song. (It’s by the same guy that wrote Jai Ho).
4. Three Idiots (2009)
This will make everyone in the West feel a little better about our educational system. Favorite line? “At 5:15, I was born. At 5:16, my father said, ‘My son is going to be an engineer.’ “ If you do watch the film, please feel free to forward through the number “Zoobi Doobi.” Please. I beg of you. My dignity could very well hang in the balance.
I just like this actor because he reminds me of my husband. Plus, hey, it’s in English, so no reading!!
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I picked these movies because I think they would have the most crossover appeal for a gathering that was mostly people who are not very familiar with Indian/Pakistani culture. And, yes, smartypants, I know they’re not the same thing.
Anything you’ve seen that you’d like to add?
Persons who contemplated writing either “Slumdog Millionaire” or “Monsoon Wedding” must forever live with the knowledge that they are, in fact, the most obvious persons on the planet.
I’m very calculated about expressing myself. I keep forgetting that a lot of people aren’t.
This makes me take the things that people say way more seriously than I should. I assume that a misplaced word or someone’s lack of diplomacy is a slight. It’s not always so. It’s usually not so.
I don’t assign a whole lot of value to the mundane. I keep forgetting that a lot of people do.
I don’t care how other people do things unless their actions make my life more difficult or painful. I really, really don’t care. I think I’m just going to stop telling others how I do things. Do I recycle or don’t I? How often do I clean my house? Does my kid dress herself? Who cares.
I’m beginning to realize that some people just use information like this to either reaffirm internal beliefs based on their own perceived superiority or inferiority. I’m exhausted by this and, as of this moment, my need to share is superseded by my need for peace.
I stopped competing and comparing myself to others a very long time ago. I keep forgetting that some people haven’t.
I find it fascinating how people can become so blindly involved in comparing and competing with others that they miss out on real human connection. The only way they seem to relate is through “more” or “less” and “better” or “worse.”
This behavior makes me sad, and I just want to be happy.
I don’t care about better or worse, more or less. Seriously, it is not even on my radar, so when someone starts talking like that, it’s like their speaking a different language. I don’t get it. And, more importantly, I don’t want to get it.
Fine. You are better. You win. You have the most. Congratulations. Now go be the best, winningest person with the most over there.
Requirements for intimate friendships should be basic or simple, or we might find ourselves alone.
Someone that really, truly doesn’t keep track of these things on a metaphorical balance sheet is ideal. People shouldn’t have to tally results at the end of the day to figure out whether or not they feel good about themselves.
This ensures, of course, that being close to them won’t mean feeling bad about yourself.
This post is an exercise I’m participating in through {W}rite of Passage. This week’s assignment: Plot is the main point of your story. Every blog post is a story, however short or long you create it. What is the point of this post? Write a post with a clear plot- the point in which you are trying to make.
Some plots are action oriented, some are internal. I’ll let you decide which route I chose. To see the various posts of other participants, scroll down to the end of the post and click on any of the links. You’re also most welcome to participate.
***
I had seen you a thousand times before.
In the street. In a restaurant. In the hands of one or another adult acquaintances. On a movie screen. On television.
People I loved and respected, even the ones who were intimate with you, told me you were dangerous and that no good would ever come from a relationship with you. But I had watched you with a sense of wonder for years, and, truthfully, you didn’t seem all that bad to me.
My first real meeting with you occurred on a still, sandy night, beside the choppy Atlantic about seventeen years ago. I sat awkwardly playful in that stillness, wedged in between two friends on a creaky red lifeguard stand, giggling about something innocent all the while pretending that our problems were real ones, in the unique way that teenagers are known to do.
You sat in one of those friend’s pocket, quietly waiting for an introduction.
I met you at a time when I wanted with all my might to stand apart from anyone who told me they knew what was best for me. You were rebellion, independence, privacy, danger and solace all wrapped up into one tiny yet very well marketed package. That night, with sand in my shoes and a strange sort of light headed aching, I let you into my life.
I think there was a time I would actually have described the way I felt about you as love.
It wasn’t love, of course. It was fascination. Then, it was need. Then, came addiction. And, now, there is shame. And, oh, God, regret. Love was never really a part of the equation between us because love doesn’t exact the price that you do.
Love does not destroy the people who worship at its altar the way you do.
In the early years, you and I were inseparable. I needed you all the time, at least once an hour, maybe more. You made me feel cool, alert and strong. You created distance between just the right people and me. You were my wall.
Then, I began to love other people in a way that I never had before. For the first time, I met somebody who loved me so much that I was forced to love myself completely. My heart opened to the goodness in life. I realized that you kept me from fully experiencing that so, though it was hard at first, I willingly let you go. We separated. There was a powerful finality to it, too.
Until.
Life got messy and complicated. I started to believe that it was all too much. I was feeling too much and not feeling like I was enough, getting frustrated, and my biggest fear loomed before me: I was showing too much of myself to the world.
You promised to take the edge off. You promised to help me hide all that emotion, all that weakness. You promised that you could do this for me even if I just met with you every once in a while. Maybe at a party. Maybe at a lunch. Maybe in the late hours of the night, when the baby was fed, and everyone was sound asleep. Just every once in a while. Nobody needed to know, and it might make all the difference, you seemed to whisper.
It’s a beautiful story, but a lie nonetheless. I know now that you actually make me more nervous. See, when the toxins you put in my body began to fade, my skin crawls. I feel like screaming. I feel mean. I can’t sleep. My head hurts. I want to do anything and everything to just make the pain of not having you stop.
You don’t calm me. You make me worse and to add insult to injury you make me believe that the opposite is true.
Truly, I have never been more gullible and stupid than when I am consorting with you.
Yesterday, I stood in front of a woman who took x-rays of my lungs. As I stood there, coughing, wheezing and gasping for air, I thought about all of the lies I told myself about you. I thought that just a sporadic association with you would save me from this. Other people cohort with you hourly, daily… I only see you every once in a while.
Apparently, everyone is different. My brother, the doctor, told me that some people can commune with you ten times as much as I do and never have a problem like this. But, he quickly added, you’re just not one of those people.
I’m not one of those people. I don’t want to be one of those people, either. Any relationship with you carries a price, whether it’s a relationship that is daily or as sporadic as once every few months. The price must be paid. I don’t want to pay it. I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.
I think about my family and how they deserve a mother, wife, daughter, aunt and sister that smells like beautiful, clean and fresh air all the time, a woman that can run and play and keep up with them, and that is … alive.
I think about how I deserve to be proud of everything I am, how I am too old for secrets, hypocrisy, inconsistency and shame. I think about how I am so much better than you and how low I feel when I let you get the best of me.
Over seventeen years ago, I made a ridiculous choice while sitting in a lifeguard stand on a chilly November night. Last week that choice turned into a head cold, that turned into a deep chesty cough, that turned into an x-ray, that has turned into a desperate prayer… and a firm resolve.
You and I? We will no longer be even the sometimes friends that we’ve been of late.
The falseness of your promises roughly washed over me yesterday as I desperately hoped that the X-ray tech would break protocol yesterday and say, Oh, you’re fine, it looks perfect, I don’t even know why you’re here.
