Reading

From the time  I began reading, I loved to read novels. They allowed me to experience someone else's world, in time, place, and emotional conflict. My love of reading led me to study literature at university. But there - living my own "adventure" - I stopped reading novels! I found them too emotionally draining, as I got caught up in someone else's problems - even if they were fictional! Books and characters lingered too long in my mind. Movies had the same effect on me. I found it hard to live in two worlds at once, so I stopped watching movies as well.

Occasionally I'd read a memoir - a real story about real people, or so it would seem. (We all remember events a little differently.) No happy (or sad) endings guaranteed - just the ups and downs of normal life.

This summer I began to read the books of Jane Christmas, a contemporary Canadian writer, who tells interesting stories about some of her own adventures. I started with her latest book, And Then There Were Nuns. It tells of her fascination with convent life. She stays in several, starting with a convent in Toronto where I have stayed several times. I enjoyed it, so I next read her account of her second last book,about her Camino de Santiago walk in Spain. Humorous at times, full of struggles - it has a happy ending.

Now I have bought the first two books she wrote. The first, The Pelee Project, is an account of a three-month escape from the city. I can identify: I've often thought about doing that... The other is an account of traveling with her mother in Europe. I did that once, too.






Am I ready to escape my daily life and jump into a reading adventure? Do I have time to get involved - and begin to care about what happens to her?! I'm hesitating for the moment. I know I'll be so caught up that I won't want to put the story down. Is that how I want to spend these last few weeks of summer? Or should I wait for a cool, rainy fall day to take the leap and jump in?!