The Season for Reading

We all know that summer is the season for reading. 

Okay, maybe many of us have forgotten that, but hopefully your childhood included summer reading programs through a local library so your brain wouldn't rot during the months without school. If yes, you probably should have some sort of association with reading and summertime. 

If you missed that train, find a child right now who will let you bum off his or her reading program for the next few months and share their coupon prizes with you.

I remember spending days at a time as a child getting lost in the many worlds of stories, pausing only to eat and sleep. My favorite days in elementary school were DEAR days--drop everything and read--when we had the whole day just to read and eat snacks (my mom always sent me with goldfish), no other life obligations. So in the summers, packing for vacations including finding just the right book companion to bring along; when family gatherings got too big, I could sneak away and find out just what misfortune was to befall the Baudelaire orphans next (or whoever happened to be experiencing something unfortunate at the time).

Even as an almost-college graduate who has spent the last several school years overloaded with various articles and texts, I still associate summer with reading. And I still look forward to summer for this reason. And yes, I still devour books just as avidly (if perhaps not in as long of interrupted segments as childhood summers allowed), going through at least 20 books a summer. 

A lot of novels. 
A smattering of history books. 
A couple of self-improvement books.

All full of words and ideas and places and people that make me feel alive. 

As I was thinking about the glories of reading and the places it takes your thoughts and your heart, I remembered seeing something insightful about life and books that a friend had posted on Facebook. I couldn't remember exactly which friend it had been, so I looked at the profiles of all my English major and book-loving friends, but without any luck. 
It had been so good though and I just had to find it so I kept wracking my brain to remember which friend might have posted it.


Then I realized it wasn't on Facebook. 

And it wasn't actually a real person. 

It was Rory Gilmore in her high school graduation speech off of Gilmore Girls. 

I know, pretty embarrassing. Apparently that whole line between fiction and real life doesn't exist in my mind not only regarding books but also the only TV series I currently watch...
However, just because it was molded by TV producers doesn't make it any less impactful for me. 

So here it is:

"I live in two worlds.  One is a world of books. I’ve been a resident of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, hunted the white whale aboard the Pequod, fought alongside Napoleon, sailed a raft with Huck and Jim, committed absurdities with Ignatius J. Reilly, rode a sad train with Anna Karenina and strolled down Swann’s Way. It’s a rewarding world, but my second one is by far superior.  My second one is populated with characters slightly less eccentric, but supremely real, made of flesh and bone, full of love...my ultimate inspiration comes from my best friend, the dazzling woman from whom I received my name and my life’s blood, Lorelai Gilmore. My mother never gave me any idea that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do or be whomever I wanted to be.  She filled our house with love and fun and books and music, unflagging in her efforts to give me role models from Jane Austen to Eudora Welty to Patti Smith.  As she guided me through these incredible eighteen years, I don’t know if she ever realized that the person I most wanted to be was her.  Thank you, Mom: you are my guidepost for everything.”

Yeah, obviously I cried when I was watching (and not reading it as a sappy Facebook status from one of my friends who recently graduated, contrary to previous belief). 
Heck I'm tearing up just reading this right now. 

Because that is the power of words. And the power of people. 

And yes, I actually find a lot of inspiration and comfort from people who live between pages and ink. And I'm thankful I get to share their experiences. 

But I'm also thankful for my own story and for the characters in the unwritten novel of my life.

It can definitely be more dull than a mystery novel, though I've had my share of adventures. And it is often more confusing with less resolution than a romance novel (the editor of my life doesn't seem too picky about removing the random events that don't seem to fit with the rest of the plot line). I'm in this world, my world, for the long run. And like Rory, I am grateful for the people in my life, for family, friends, and the occasional mortal enemies who keep things interesting, who make me laugh, who help me see the world differently. I need these physical guideposts. 


And I'm happy that I can run in and out of the world of books, that I have access to the best and worst of both the literary world and my own world.  

I want to forever associate summer with reading. It is a time to go on imaginative adventures, a time to vicariously feel betrayed and alone and happy and complete, a time to remember there are more worlds than just my own.