I love to read. I carry a book – or the Kindle app on my phone, nowadays – so I can capture any spare few minutes in words. I am one of those people who likes to sit in waiting rooms because then I have an excuse to read. I read in the bathtub. I read before I go to bed. I read on the couch by the warm woodstove. I read at my desk when I’m trying to kickstart my writing.
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I read a lot.
But I don’t read when I’m tired, except when I go to bed, and then, I usually read a couple of paragraphs and slam into sleep like someone turned off my switch.
When I’m tired – or sick for that matter – I spend a lot of time staring – at the television or into blank space. . . but I don’t read much, which isn’t something I love about myself, if I’m honest, but it’s fact.
Too much fatigue makes reading less desirable for me.
This week, P and I spent hours and hours outside in the cold stringing an electric fence to keep Boone and Bella, our Great Pyrenees, in the pasture, and while we were doing that, our dog Meander breached the fence on the chicken run. So as the sun set yesterday, we were putting in invisible fence there. Most of our days during this holiday weekend were spent bundled and braced as we worked in the late fall wind.
When we came in, the last thing I wanted to do was hold anything up or try to make my mind follow lines of text. I just wanted to stare.
So my reading count this week is about 25 pages of Marilynne Robinson’s Lila, which I love for it’s powerful characterization and sweet, swelling love story. But this week, I probably should have picked up a YA novel that required less attention if I simply wanted to breeze through pages.
Still, today, the dogs are contained – although I hear Boone tried to climb the 5-foot oak gate we built yesterday – the fireplace is on, the coffee is hot, and I’m going to spend some of this quiet morning with Lila in my fingers.
A perfect Sunday.
What about you? Do you like to read when you’re tired? Why or why not?