Reading is Fundamental!

I was an only child for 13 years.

What this means is that I often had to find a way to entertain myself that did not require the presence of another person. (With the exception of cousin-visit days) this pretty much ruled out board games and even simple outside games like hopscotch and tag. I enjoyed my fair share of television, swingsets and solo jumprope, but my most beloved independent pastime was reading. By age 7 I had already become a bona fide bookworm.

I would often fight the weight of my eyelids, reading late into the night. I would finish assignments early and sneak peeks at Goosebumps books under my desk at school. At night in the car I would hold my book up in the back seat trying to make out the next paragraph in the headlights of the cars behind us. Anytime I earned a reward I would ask for the next book in whatever series I was reading. The book fair was my favorite day at school.

My love for reading was unhealthily intense. I would carry books with me into the bathroom, using one hand to assist with the process of doing my business and other to hold the book in front of my face. On weeknights I would cry if we pulled into the library parking lot only to find that it had closed 5 minutes earlier. On weekends I would wake up, roll over, put my glasses on and start reading. I had to be reminded to get dressed, bathe, eat.

High school all but ended my obsessive love affair with reading. Back then I would much rather spend my time cultivating my social life than reading. My primary interests switched to spending every waking moment on the phone, cheerleading practice and going to all my boyfriend's football games. Although there were a few rare moments of voluntarily reading, the majority of my literary intake resulted from AP English assignments.

When I graduated, effectively breaking the "American teenager spell", I began to miss the mother-daughter trips to library that I begged for as a child. I would walk past Border's and bestsellers would wave to me from the storefront like neglected old friends. But then I started Princeton and I was assigned so much reading that my hands were constantly covered in paper cuts from turning pages all the time. I could barely finish all the required reading, much less fit in a word I actually wanted to read.

Now that Princeton Univeristy is shrinking in my rearview mirror I'm readjusting to the concept of free time. I don't know if I can ever make up for the way I discarded such a dear old mate who kept me company through many a childhood hour, but I'm attempting to mend the fences by indiscriminately reading anything I can get my hands on and discussing it with anyone who will listen.

When I packed my life into two suitcases I made space for seven books despite Ethiopian Air's ridiculous weight limit. This is not nearly enough to tide me over for a year but I'm working on amassing a small collection. Books are super expensive in TZ but I hope to trade, borrow, barter and generally wheel and deal myself into some new additions. So far I've been given a Ralph Ellison novel by a friend who is putting her luggage on a diet and I've been loaned the autobiography of a British comedian by a friend who hasn't found the time to read it yet. One of the Princeton kids has a copy of "Lolita" and I wish I could buy it off her but she hasn't finished reading it yet and they're all leaving at the end of this week. I've been wanting to read that book for years and I kept putting it off. Good luck finding a copy of "Lolita" in East Africa. Nonetheless, I am excited about the books that I do have, but I'm torn between devouring them voraciously and savoring them slowly. After all, I do have to make them last for a year.

Anyway, I've decided that the quest to rekindle my love affair with reading is important enough to deserve it's own space on the page so I've added a little box on the right where I will list all the books I read this year. Here's to hoping the list grows quite lengthy.

-K