Reading and Happiness

Great article in this month’s Reader’s Digest titled, “How Reading Makes You Happy” by Jessica Cassity. The list of reasons: encourage positive thinking, friendship, teaches empathy, stirs memories, inspires.

Wow, just from reading. Seems impossible. Yet, I do remember the exquisite happiness of every other Saturday when the family made the trip to the library. To this day, nothing makes me as happy as browsing through shelves and stacks of old books. Old books are like the library of my youth. The Children’s section was in the basement and every visit was full of wonder and tactile sensory invasions. Of lemon oil and heavy oak furniture, card files, long scarred tables and chairs that scuffed and dragged the wooden floor. Books and books and books, hardback books, books with library cards and cream-colored pages, just slightly musty, the outside covers dark muted navy or green or burgundy. The hushed whispers, the occasional too-loud laugh, the white-haired, grandmother-faced Mrs. Peterson shushing.

I was in fifth grade when Mrs. Peterson told my mother I had scoured through and read everything in the children section I was even possibly interested in. (That summer I decided to read every fiction book on horses in the library. It was a whole shelf long, but I did it. How I wish I could remember the titles. That was also the year I decide I wanted to grow up and be just like Louis May Alcott. Hey, look where writing got her.) She told mother to take me on upstairs to the Adult fiction.

Truth to tell, the Adult section wasn’t nearly as sensuous. Truth was it was a bit of a letdown. There were no doll collections, no aquariums, no terrariums, no stereoscopes, but the upside was I could look in the same section as my older siblings. I thought I was something and I did find reading to fall in love with and yes, happiness. Think Gone with the Wind, Forever Amber, Rod McKuen, Shane and Mrs. Mike and happiness. 

Note: One of my regrets, not really a life changing one, but, maybe, a life enriching one, is that I didn’t write down all the many, many books I read from the time I started reading, especially, from that year on. I didn’t think about doing so until 1994. How I wish I had. It’s tough going back, but I do try. I wish I had encouraged my children, all good readers, to do so, but I didn’t think of it. You can be sure I encourage my grandkids.

Remember these two things:
The world would be a happier place if we got rid of illiteracy, right?
When the world is crazy and things like 9/11, Sandy, shootings happen and you're sitting at your desk wondering if what you're doing is important, remember...it is.