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Category Archives: Reflections

No one asked me, but

In subscribing to a handful of blogs and reading websites, following hashtags on Instagram, and reading professional magazines for librarians, I spend time each day skimming or deep-reading articles and short snippets of reviews and recommendations. Several days ago, Senjuti Patra published an article “A Brief History of Reading” via Book Riot. Several passages struck me and I wanted to share my thoughts. Yes, no one asked me, but I’m going to share them anyway.

The earliest written texts were meant to be read out loud. The characters were written in a continuous stream, to be disentangled by the skilled reader when reading out loud. Punctuation was used for the first time only around 200 BCE, and was erratic well into the middle ages.

This fascinated me, but it makes sense that the development of writing taken from the oral traditions wouldn’t have been fully formed. And even now, things continue to develop and morph. It truly centered around the reader and a skilled one at that. Someone who would practice ahead of time and deliver it with gusto because it was a form of entertainment or to deliver information that anyone could understand.

Reading from a book was considered pleasant dinnertime entertainment, even in humbler homes, from the Roman times to the 19th century.

Let’s bring this back. Seriously. I’m thinking that once a week, we’ll turn off the news and instead listen to a family-friendly audiobook. What would you suggest?

Once primary education became more accessible and acceptable, younger members of the family read to the elders, in a sweet reversal of the classic grandma’s tales.

The minute I read this sentence I remembered the scenes (I’m sure they were in the book but I automatically conjured the movie in my mind) from Little Women in which Jo was heading to the home of an older relative (her great aunt?) to read and dreading it, but how important it was for the connection between generations. It allowed the youth to practice their skills and benefited the old who might have had failing eyesight but also wanted the companionship. I’m assuming technology has stepped in in some ways and someone older is just pulling an audiobook up, but what a thought that books like card games can bring everyone together.

Finding passion

03 Jan

Netflix is the pleasure I reserve for early morning workouts on the elliptical in the garage and Friday and Saturday nights usually. Netflix in the mornings is whatever I want to watch while the weekend watching is usually with my husband and sometimes even the kids. Last night we watched two episodes of two different series: one called The Surgeon’s Cut (episode two “Sacred Brain”) and one Chef’s Table: BBQ (episode two “Lennox Hastie”).

My takeaway from the first series having watched the first episode as well as the second now is that the body is an amazing thing. Having recently read the deeply bibliotherapeutic memoir The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper, I can’t help but connect the two. The doctors in the docuseries and of her own memoir are passionate about their work because they can throw themselves into something that helps others when they themselves needed a hero growing up– for each of them, they became their own rescuer and in that metamorphosis, they now fight for others. A powerful message indeed.

My takeaway from the second series you can likely connect to my affinity for reading food memoirs which I’ve shared extensively here and on the other blogs I contribute to. Especially this second episode, Lennox Hastie has created something entirely his own for his own benefit– the love of the heat of an open flame and his restaurant that took a career to open in Australia– is all flame-cooked from the salad to the dessert. Whether it was the crafters of the episode and thus the series or Hastie himself, the episode hit me deep down. His quest for scrumptiousness and his enjoyment in watching others moan with the pleasure of the taste sensations is the chase that he yearns for. But it is more than pleasing others, there is also a deep satisfaction with himself in the process of exploring and creating that should be honed. Everyone should find their passion the way he has. It’s the constant practice that connected me to one of the last books of 2020 that I listened to: James Clear’s Atomic Habits coupled with Eric Ripert’s 32 Yolks.

How do we unlock our passions? How do we keep the drive alive to excel and find our purpose? What is your story?

Really old things

09 Dec

As much as I’m a homebody, I like a good adventure. Specifically, one that will teach me something. And this likely stems from my childhood since we were not the family whose vacations were vegging out on a beach or waiting in the long lines of a theme park, we were the family that went to places like “the Grand Canyon of the east” and Gettysburg.

Maybe that’s why I became a librarian. Endless learning possibilities.

48 Hudson Ave. What you see is a mockup of the original structure for preservation purposes.

I’ve built my own family and (not ironically), we have the same adventures. I also have a fellow librarian who likes learning adventures that usually also include a good drink or spectacular food too. This past Friday night, we spent a bundled up half an hour touring the oldest Dutch home in our area in desperate need of restoration to return it to its former glory. But not to make it a museum. Instead, the historic foundation would like to make sure it’s used as a soft space appreciating the history and glory while being functional. So often we throw away things that are old or unusable. Heck, I still guiltily think about my first year as a school librarian saying “get it out of here!” to the overpowering but beautiful card catalog holding up a few computers. It was the best decision to find it a new home, but I think about it from time to time. The stories it held, the kids hands who touched it, the years it had seen.

Kind of like the stories that are told in What We Keep: 150 People Share the One Object that Brings them Joy, Magic, and Meaning by Bill Shapiro. Just like this Dutch home that had seen families and industry, been remodeled and redone, only to be discovered again. What stories it holds.

What can you discover around your area, especially the old things, the often overlooked things?