Reading Sets You Free

Reading Sets You Free
(Image from Blue Cereal Education)

Yes, it does set me free. It always has.

Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, books keep me from being "locked down." I don't care if the books are in the hard copy form of actual physical books or if they are electronic. As long as the words are there. As long as they take me some place and show me a thing or two or twenty-seven.

Many of my friends  are working jigsaw puzzles. Thousands of pieces puzzles. They rescue them from the backs of closets. They retrieve them from storage units. They order them online. They share them back and forth and back again. They have preferences: puzzles about travel, puzzles about cats, brightly colored puzzles, oddly shaped puzzles.

I can't do puzzles. I have a cat. My Kočka, would no doubt love for me to work jigsaw puzzles -- on the dining table, sans 24-hour guard.

He plays with things. Carries things around. Loses things. He probably doesn't think he's "losing" things. The only thing he loses is "interest" in those things he carries around.

Kočka is an unusually smart cat, but words in books are beyond him. In fact, the books themselves hold no interest for him. And because my e-reader, unlike my cell phone, does not respond to his touching the screen, he's not interested in it either -- soooo, he leaves them alone.

Consequently, I may lose my place in whatever book I'm reading, but I won't lose the book, be it hard copy or electronic.

Our public library is closed for the foreseeable future. You can go online and put books on hold. Hard copy books you pick up curbside. It goes like this. They send you an email when the books you want are available. You park in the designated area at the library, call them to tell them you've arrived and open your trunk, then get back in your car. They bring your books out in a brown paper bag and put them in your trunk. You get out and close your trunk and go home. (Kinda puts you in mind of receiving contraband, doesn't it?) No face-to-face contact. Minimal risk of spreading Covid-19. Or you can download the books you want to your e-reader with absolutely zero chance of spreading the virus. Either way, it's free.



This week I finished Diane Mott Davidson's Tough Cookie, a cozy mystery, one of Davidson's series featuring the caterer sleuth Goldie Schultz. Her books are set in Colorado and are liberally sprinkled with recipes. 

Of course, I have to interrupt reading to prepare this recipe or that. The only thing is, even though her books are set just up the hill from where I live, I still have to amend them for cooking at altitude. At a book-signing, she explained that she has a professional change the recipes so they work at sea level.



And then I read Fredrik Backman's Britt-Marie Was Here. Let me just say, if it's a Backman book, it's worth my time. He writes people I know and philosophy I understand.

         

                   "A human being, any human being at all, has so perishingly few chances to 

              stay right there, to let go of time and fall into the moment. Explode with passion.

                    A few times when we are children, maybe, for those of us who are allowed 

              to be. But after that, how many breaths are we allowed to take beyond the con-

              fines of ourselves? How many pure emotions make us cheer out loud, without
              a sense of shame?
                     All passion is childish. It's banal and naive. It's nothing we learn; it's 
               instinctive, and so it overwhelms us. Overturns us. It bears us away in a flood. 

               All other emotions belong to the earth, but passion inhabits the universe."

Those two books, I downloaded on my e-reader from the library. 

My next book was Nevada Barr's Liberty Falling. Several years ago while my Daddy was still living, one of his care-givers brought me a grocery bag filled with Nevada Barr books. For those of you not familiar with her work, she writes murder mysteries, a bit more action-packed than Davidson's. Barr's main character is Anna Pigeon, a Park Ranger. Each mystery is set in one of the National Parks. This one takes place at The Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island National Park, and in New York City's Manhattan.

Remember the old James Bond movies, back when they included not only flash/bang/chase scenes but actual dialog. And that dialog was snarky?  Like when Bond was on the dance floor with a beautiful woman and he saw reflected in her eyes an assassin aiming at him. He spun her around so that it was she who was shot. He danced the victim over to a chair, gently sat her down in it and said to a bystander, "Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She's just dead."

Barr laces her high energy action with the same kind of humor. At one point, Anna ascertains that a fellow Park Ranger, though injured, is not in danger of dying and she must go ahead and save the day. 


Barr writes,

"Anna squirmed under the Dumpster and retrieved Andrew's gun. A Glock 9mm, a good weapon. She chambered a round. 'I'll be back,' she promised. Arnold Schwarzenegger had said the same thing in Terminator 2. It sounded more convincing with the accent."

And a few pages on:

"Regardless of how divinely inspired, New York frowned upon unauthorized persons shooting people with borrowed guns. Anna spent seven hours with three different law enforcement agencies giving statements, defending her
actions, accepting congratulations, being bullied and drinking bad coffee. Drowning in polluted salt water was beginning to seem like the good old days."



Despite the current administration's hurry to "reopen," the simple fact of the matter is Covid-19 is here to stay. Until there is a safe and effective vaccine, those of us in an "at risk group" or who interact with people in such a group should continue to stay home when possible, observe six-feet social distancing and wear masks when away from home, and wash our hands often or use hand sanitizer.

And do whatever we can to limit cabin fever -- work jigsaw puzzles, read, watch old movies, dance in the laundry room, sing in the kitchen, paint, bake, write, take online ukulele lessons -- make our own happy!

Y'all stay safe.