Tag: Parker Palmer

Drowning in Literature

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment

I’m gonna drown myself in a book. Not just any book. A good book. A book with a fine bouquet.

Paperback or Kindle. From a box or bottle. Bought or borrowed. It’s all good. It all works, gets me out of my own head and into a different space.

I love love love love love reading. I can read everything and anything.

I took this picture last August at my friend's summer house on Saranac Lake.

When I’m down I grab a book and I down it.

I don’t care if it’s self-help (need it!) chick lit (love it!) or trash (gimme!).

I have been feeling a little down this week — maybe it’s transitioning the kids from school to summer or a slight anxiety about Chris’s health or simply not enough sunshine.

So I start with an appetizer, the front section of The New York Times, then I move on to the main course, right now reading Franzen’s Freedom. For dessert, I might read Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak (Thanks, Juliana for lending!).

I get lost in reading. I have to have something to read with me at all times — in my purse, beside my bed, in my bike basket. Something to comfort, transport, drown me.  Reading is my great escape.

And it is my Number 2 Rule — Escape Through Literature. I’m going to read a lot tonite, but first I have to finish watching the movie Chris borrowed from the library, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.  That’s right, I’m drowning myself in a movie based on great literature. That counts too.