Trying to Get My Mojo Back, part 1

Part 1: Relearning How to Read

If you've been following me at all on Facebook, you know that I've been posting about my own 30-day challenge — a challenge to get my mojo back. Merriam-Webster defines "mojo" as "a magic spell, hex, or charm; magical power." And my mojo is gone.

One magical power I used to have, a lifetime ago, is that I used to be a reader. I read voraciously as a kid — under the covers with a flashlight, sitting on the floor by the christmas lights, in a tree, in the barn, down by the river. I read any book I could get my hands on —The Narnia series, Rebecca (both Maxim's first wife, and also of Sunnybrook Farm), Little Women and Little Men, Harlequin romances with the sexy scenes Sharpied out by my Oma, The Thorn Birds, the entire Love Comes Softly series, the books in my Grandma's bathroom (next to her secret cigarettes) that would fall open to the sexy scenes if you laid them on their spines.

I used to love to read.

But then I went to college and had to resort to reading CliffsNotes to make it through the reading lists of my classes while also trying to maintain relationships and work 30 hours/week. When I did read, it was to try to connect with my future husband, to read what he loved, so that I could love the things he loved (spoiler: it didn't work). And when I became a teacher, even that reading disappeared, replaced by panicked-reading of the books I had to teach, milk creates of journals, reams of research papers and personal narratives and short fiction stories where the protagonist always dies in a car crash on the way to prom.

Two decades ago, when we were all children, I was in a book club. Sometimes I read the book; sometimes I didn't. Usually I was speed-reading the night before our book club meeting, desperately trying to finish, so that I could both drink wine and talk about the book the next night. But book club petered out, as book clubs do, when people got married, had kids, moved away, got other jobs, got other degrees.

And now I need reading glasses.

For the last decade, I've vowed to read at least 2 books every summer, at least 1 book on winter break. That's it. That's all I read. I don't even enjoy it anymore, the eye strain and the terrible metaphors and the terror of finishing a book, knowing it will be over soon and I'll never see those people again. Over the last decade, I've fallen in love with The Poet X, East of Eden,and There There; I read Holes because my son said it was the greatest book of all time, I tried to read All American Boys and got bored, and I read scores of books as I changed schools and changed grade levels and changed curriculum. But each book was a chore, a task I had to force myself to do, a job.

So, this summer, I am going to try to get my mojo back. I'm going to try to rediscover the joy of reading. I'm going to try to read because I want to, not because I have to. I'm going to try to read books I've wanted to read, books I've impulse bought, books that have been suggested to me, books with the sexy bits still intact.

So far this summer, I've read:

The Orphan Keeper — A good book, not a great one. The true story of an Indian boy, kidnapped, sold, then adopted in America, I was hooked on his story, the story of resilience of a little boy trying to navigate a system he didn't understand. And then the boy ended up in America, adopted by a well-meaning family who had no idea that the boy had a family back in India, and I wanted to keep reading...until the book skipped a decade and suddenly the boy was a man. I wanted to learn about how he survived American middle school, how he navigated high school, how he bonded (or didn't) with his adoptive family, but instead the book skipped all that, and focused on his return to India as an adult. I wanted the story of the child.

Americanah — Just go read it now. You're welcome.

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit — Love, love, love. I love this quirky little girl, her obsessed mom, her imagination, her unique perspective on the world. I wanted to read it again as soon as I put it down. I wanted to look it up on Sparknotes, afraid I was missing something brilliant, and I wanted to not care that maybe I misinterpreted something because this was the book I read and this was what I got from it.

So far this summer, I've put down and walked away from:

Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America  — I wanted to love this book. It came highly recommended, and I tried, for about 40 pages. And then I realized that I was dreading the book, skimming pages, trying to finish...and that's no way to read a book. I hated the narrator, hated the way she talked about her parents, told her funny stories that, to me, felt more mocking than loving. I wanted to read her experiences like I read Amy Tan, with awe at the beauty and pain at the tension, but instead I was skimming it like Foxnews.com, just trying to get through it and make sure I don't miss something in the narrative, but hating every word on the page. Finally, I put it down and walked away.

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom — I'll come back to this one. I want to read it, and I'm learning a lot, but I don't want to think about work right now, and this book forces me to think about the students in my room, and how to be the best teacher that I can be for them. Right now, I don't want to think about the students in my room; right now I want to relearn how to love reading. Right now, I don't want to think about the enormity of my job; right now, I just want to read.

I have many more on my list this summer. I still want to read:

A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons. — I love Ben Folds. I've listened to his life story in music. Now I want to read it in prose.

Murder on the Red River — A student recommended this. Unlike the other recommendations I got this year (Anna Karenina?? Just, no.) this one seemed worth a shot. Plus, I really liked the student, and it's a genre I don't usually read. I'll give it a shot.

The Long Walk — I hate horror but I love Stephen King's writing, and I was promised that this one wasn't scary. I started it last summer and had to put it down when school started. I want to pick it back up again.

Firekeeper's Daughter — I bought this last Christmas as a gift to myself, and then another one was gifted to me this summer. I've been waiting for the right time to read it, a time when I won't be interrupted 100 times an hour, a time where I can just read it cover to cover, even in a single sitting if that's how I want to read it. I plan to take this one camping, when I can be off the grid, laying in a hammock or on the beach...and I can just read.

You Can't Be Serious — I read somewhere that this was a great read. I'm hoping it is.

There are another 45  "I want to read" books on my "want to read" shelf...but for now, I am trying to learn how to read for pleasure once again. I am slowly building reading stamina, slowly trying to beat back the guilt of sitting and doing nothing for hours at a time when I should be cleaning or working or paying attention to everything and everyone else in my life — and I recognize the irony of putting "Relearn how to read for pleasure" on my to-do list — but right here, right now, I just want to get my mojo back, and rediscover my love of reading and my ability to get lost in a book.

Today, I wrote.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Tomorrow, I'm going to read.