Nov 5 What are your strengths? Which are you most grateful for?
As soon as I'm done with this blog post, I get to finish the last 40 pages of Falling Into Place, by Amy Zhang. After that, my bedtime book is Philip Roth's American Pastoral. On Sunday I will spend the evening at the Des Moines Public Library, attending my version of a rock concert: a Billy Collins poetry reading.
I'm a good reader. I'm not especially fast, but I read with my antennae out, feeling the vibrations of a well-crafted phrase, the tingle of an allusion, the tremor of a recurring motif. My developed ability to read richly makes me envious of those who have similarly developed appreciations for music or art or sports or finance....
And that keeps me humble. I'm not a good reader because I am brilliant, any more than I'm stupid because I can only appreciate classical music superficially.
My strengths were not--like dimples or good hair--bestowed by the fickle pot-bellied gods; rather, they are developed, nurtured skills. I was lucky to have parents who read voraciously--to themselves, to their children, to each other. My earliest memories are of stories.
I then spent years reading Seventeen Magazine and steamy fiction, and filling spiral notebooks with such poetic lines as "I hate my mother" and "Joe Ruge is so cool." I had no idea I was building the foundation of literary appreciation, but I was.
At some point I discovered that while it felt good to pour out my thoughts onto a page, it felt even better to find word combinations and rhythms to make those thoughts ripple and swirl. And the more I read, the more I sensed how writers were tugging (or failing to tug) me into their thoughts.
I can't calculate the hours I've spent at a keyboard or reading. I'm pretty sure if I'd put that time into tightrope walking, I'd be living out my circus fantasy by now. If I'd spent those hours playing the piano, I'd be past the Level 4 books I've been stuck at since eighth grade.
The upshot is this: what we do becomes who we are. The things I'm best at are things I've invested my time doing. And now, friends, I have some books waiting....
And that keeps me humble. I'm not a good reader because I am brilliant, any more than I'm stupid because I can only appreciate classical music superficially.
My strengths were not--like dimples or good hair--bestowed by the fickle pot-bellied gods; rather, they are developed, nurtured skills. I was lucky to have parents who read voraciously--to themselves, to their children, to each other. My earliest memories are of stories.
I then spent years reading Seventeen Magazine and steamy fiction, and filling spiral notebooks with such poetic lines as "I hate my mother" and "Joe Ruge is so cool." I had no idea I was building the foundation of literary appreciation, but I was.
At some point I discovered that while it felt good to pour out my thoughts onto a page, it felt even better to find word combinations and rhythms to make those thoughts ripple and swirl. And the more I read, the more I sensed how writers were tugging (or failing to tug) me into their thoughts.
I can't calculate the hours I've spent at a keyboard or reading. I'm pretty sure if I'd put that time into tightrope walking, I'd be living out my circus fantasy by now. If I'd spent those hours playing the piano, I'd be past the Level 4 books I've been stuck at since eighth grade.
The upshot is this: what we do becomes who we are. The things I'm best at are things I've invested my time doing. And now, friends, I have some books waiting....
One line I've heard (and find challenging) is: "We are what we habitually do." Does say something about our habits being choices of what to cultivate... JSD
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