Sometimes the Tortoise, Sometimes the Hare

     'Tis a paradox. Or, as the King would say in The King and I, "Is a puzzlement!"

     When I lived my incredibly busy life in Houston, I really had precious little time to read. True, on paper a typical work day at the opera was six hours, but "on paper" didn't include practice time, study, score work, or listening, all of which came with the job. Factor in meals and sleep, and I really did have precious little time to read. Factor in, as well, that I am not the world's fastest reader; I like to savor as I go along, linger over particularly striking passages. Yet I managed to read, on average, a book a week during production periods; outside production, I averaged two a week.

     If my life in Houston was allegro, my life now is andante tranquillo. Other than doctor's appointments (both mine and my mother's), twice-monthly grocery shopping, once-monthly mother/daughters lunches, weekly family gatherings, visits to the library every three weeks, and daily chores, I'm pretty much free to read as much and as often as I like. Yet I only manage to read, on average, one or two books a month. Some months, not even that.

     I do find myself turning to things that lend themselves to "dipping"—every day, I dip into literary essays (lots of those lately), writings of the Church fathers, scripture commentary, correspondence, poetry. Or I'll pick up a play, always a fast but engaging read. When I do read a novel, biography, or other extended work, I take my sweet time, and don't care that two weeks go by and I'm barely halfway through. In fact, I consider it the mark of a good writer if the book can sustain my interest that long.

     Every once in while, however, if for no other reason than change of pace, I can and will race through a book. I recently raced through Henry Handel Richardson's Maurice Guest, for instance; no mean feat, as it's about 567 pages of very tiny font; never mind that when I got to the end I was so pissed off I wanted to hurl the book across the room.

     Almost every day in Houston, I fervently longed for a quieter life in which I could read (and write, for that matter) to my heart's content. Now I have it. But instead of devouring one book after another as I thought I would, I find the tempo of my reading has matched the tempo of my life—as it did also in Houston. I find, too, that I now remember more of what I read, whereas in Houston, a book went in one eye and out the other before I could make more than a nodding acquaintance with it. I can remember from that period of my life which books I loved and which I merely liked, but I couldn't describe the plot of any of them. Sad thing, that. Fortunately, I always kept a record in my journal of the books I read, so I'll just have to re-read all of them. I have the time now.