Reading material

I love those fluff magazines like Good Housekeeping.  In fact, it’s been a secret pleasure since I was a pre-teen, so nerdy, so true.  Sometimes my aunt would take me with her on an errand while I was supposed to be cleaning her house, and we’d end up in the check-out aisle of the grocery store.  Inevitably it would be Christmastime, and I have no idea how she knew about my young-girl Caren dreams, but she would almost always buy me one of those glossy magazines littered with decorating and craft and cooking ideas.  They were saturated with photos dripping with colorful balls and bulbs and bobbles.  I was intensely satisfied, allowed to wander through fancy houses I could only dream of.

In between colorful holiday table settings were of course grown-up articles like Hints from Heloise and Can This Marriage Be Saved, you know the ones.  I wanted to be a grown-up since before I was a teen.  So there was little better than for my 12 year-old Caren than to drape over a brand new Christmas issue of Family Circle.  Really.

Have you ever gotten an offer for a magazine you honestly can’t figure out how they can even make copies, it’s so cheap?  So that’s how we’ve come to get oodles of magazines pouring out of our mailbox.  So many, such big piles of Discover, National Geographic, Blade, church periodicals, Family Fun, Highlights, Real Simple, National Geographic Kid, Grit, Hobby Farms, Mother Earth News, Montana Sporting Journal, Good Housekeeping, Country Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and I don’t know what else we’ve had over the years, not to mention the bee, hunting, seed, and sportswear catalogs.  That’s a lot of periodicals to cover.  I remember a new friend of ours, his house, his own pile of news weeklies, remarking how magazines are about his speed:  short articles, low commitment.  We sort of agreed that we also liked that feature as well.

But there came a time several years ago that I heard a talk many of you are familiar with, encouraging us to not only seek the good in life—and here we’re just talking about reading choices—but to see if there is something better, maybe even a best.  That admonition encouraged me to take a good look at my reading habits, to see if there was some improvement I could make.  And you know if you take a good look at any part of your life or yourself what the answer will always be.

I’m nowhere near where I want to be.  I long to fly through the tomes like my intellectual friends, to recall with accurate detail what the arguments and symbolisms were.  I aspire to be a scriptorian and to know all the people by name, role, and place in time.  I want to be able to retain the information in the studies I read about in my interesting non-fiction social science books so I can apply all those delightful tidbits and share the detail of the experiments.   Alas, this is where I am.  And I vow to change it every single day.  But here’s my reality.  It gets to be about 9 p.m. and I realize I’m running out of time (and steam), so I get ready for bed and tell myself I’ve got half an hour or so.  But some days I haven’t read my scriptures until this moment, and so I prioritize my reading like you would.  And then I can choose one of five or so reading options: 1) to just hang out and catch up with Todd and skip reading anything altogether, 2) look at a magazine together, 3) look at a fluff magazine I like while he looks at one of his bee-keeping or gardening choices, 4) read a novel, or 5) read something a little heavier.  And I bounce around between them all, no rhyme or reason, just based on what I feel like.

Here’s what’s changed over the years.  I stopped subscribing to some of the magazines I felt were probably in the good category—nothing more than fun and entertaining—basically because I just couldn’t keep up.  I still get a couple.  And some nights that’s the most mindful thing I can do.  I’m so tired or in a grumpy mood that there’s no way I want something that’s good for me, I just want fluff to help me transition and to relax, nothing more.

Sometimes I’ll read my book.  Once in awhile I’ll do a novel, but mostly I love my non-fiction.  To me there is nothing more inspiring than real people who overcome incredible odds.  I love learning lessons through others’ experiences, I like seeing what makes people tick, I’m intrigued by the science behind our social behaviors.

If I have any sort of residual energy I really do like to look at a magazine with Todd.  Sometimes we have a lot to catch up on, so we’ll spend the hour or more just talking.  But we love our magazines packed with yard plans, appraised antiques, and houses for sale in small country towns.  We are truly us when we’re perusing Country Living cuddled in bed on cold snowy nights.

I can rate my reading choices as good  (magazines that inspire me to decorate and organize my life, improve our gardening techniques, how to spot a good deal on antiques), better (interesting stories that make me think, that introduce me to new and different ways of looking at life and people), and best (selections that inspire me to be a better person, to be kinder, more accepting, less judgmental), just as I’m sure you could come up with your own criteria for what you choose to read.

A lot of nights I’m medium—I’ll read a good book.  Some nights the best I have in me is to read a fluff magazine column before I succumb.  Other nights I’ll have energy to really engage in some deep study; I’ll even take notes on what I’m reading.  I think we all have a mix of days like these.  While we surely would love to be our best all the time, sometimes we have to admit we’re just having leftovers for dinner or we’re going to stay up late and go out for ice cream, we’re taking some time out and are just going to watch movies while it rains, a fluff kind of day.  Sometimes we’re more disciplined and plan earlier in the day so that we can make bread and get some some stew in the crock pot and stick to our bedtime routine, a solid choice.  Other days we have enough stamina to pull out all the stops and make dinner for another family, clean even the window sills, and make homemade chocolate cake with homemade ice cream with a little plate for the neighbors.  Kind of an almost best effort.  I guess I’m just saying while some days good is our best, maybe we could occasionally raise the bar and see what else might be better.  And every now and then step it up and discover what best feels like.  Not to put any more pressure on ourselves, but I wonder if we can improve in incremental ways, starting with an area as seemingly benign as reading.  Because as much as I long to immerse myself in every interesting tidbit-filled publication and tantalizing new novel on the best-seller list, as well as all the world tempts me with, I just can’t seem to fit it all in.  And so I have to prioritize.  And be really in-tune with what seems best when I face my stack, whether it’s the books by my bed or the hours in my days.

Click here for the talk I'm referring to