Children of Blood and Bone

Sometimes unstructured time to just lose myself in a book is hard to find. I make reading a high priority but some books beg to be read without interruption. When I also want to write a review of the book for Twin Cities Geeks a book gets a special kind of priority. I read all the time but a book will inevitably get put down if the TV is on in the background, if I am reading on a break while the laundry is in the dryer or food is in the oven, if I am sitting in a waiting room. I wanted to be able to lose myself more while reading this particular book.

I take the light rail everywhere in the Twin Cities and thought that a 45 minute light rail ride would be a great chance to start reading the book. Excited I put headphones on to indicate I didn't want to be interrupted. But man sat next to me who didn't understand that is a social cue for not wanting to talk and kept trying to chat with me. And on the train ride home I had to follow up on a phone call regarding a possible job. No reading was done.

I thought that I would spend some time the day before reading the book and writing down my initial thoughts to help structure my review. However an employment agency called about a job I applied to and said that it was important I meet with them immediately. On the bus ride there I reviewed my notes for the job and only to get there and have them try to convince me to work in a completely different position than I applied for. I was not interested in a call center position that did not offer a livable wage. Since nothing productive came of that morning I made sure to be writing follow up emails regarding other jobs I applied for on my smart phone on my bus ride home. No reading was done.

Because I had a hard time getting time to read the book during the week I thought I would take the book with me on my plane ride out to spend my Easter week with my parents in South Carolina. But somehow in the frenzy to get everything packed I put the book in the suitcase I checked before boarding the plane not my carry on. I read a book on my Kindle instead.

It would not be until I got to South Carolina that I would start the book. My parents still work full time so there was downtime to finally start  reading the book.

I was delighted by the magical story. I will save the commentary on the content of the book for Twin Cities Geeks.

But it made me think of why it seems so desirable to have uninterrupted time to read. When I was a kid I was able to sit with a stack of books and escape into more than one book in an afternoon. When I was a graduate student I felt I was doing the job asked of me if I went to a coffee shop or a corner of a library and spent a few hours just reading by myself.

Even though I never stopped reading that uninterrupted time I got when I was younger seems pretty idealistic now. Before I start reading on my Kindle I can't completely relax without checking my email and my banking account first. If I want to sit down at home with a book I will often do this inventory in my head first. Is there anything else I should take care of today before I relax? This is typically a checklist of people to contact in my job search and household tasks. It's fun if I am working on a writing goal or if I am making arrangements to play around the city but I am still feeling like I am not able to completely abandon myself into a story if I am fixated on a to-do list.

I need to take a step back and ask myself why the idea of uninterrupted reading seems like a good idea. I often feel pressed for time. Job searching requires keeping up with the speed of the world. I also want to take advantage of time I have for projects that I want to finish or have a solid start on before I start my next job.  So the act of sitting down to read a book is the image I have in my head of ultimate relaxation. When I pick up a book it is my sign to myself that I  now on my time. While these other things are important to me reading is always my personal top priority. However sometimes it's the last thing I get to when I am following the checklist of things I need to prioritize.

As I sat down to write this post my parents dog kept jumping up on me begging for attention. I got up from my laptop and went outside to play fetch I realized that some interruptions are more welcome than others. I was happy to get up from my computer and close my book to play with a dog. I recently decided that books don't distract me from life. Life distracts me from books and some distractions are more enjoyable than others.