Bird Mail: Season 02, Issue 02
Hello Friend,
I know I said that this would be a more regular thing, but I’m still trying to figure out what more regular really means. Once a month? Every two weeks?
Do you have a preference?
By more regular thing, in case you were wondering, I mean issues of Bird Mail, this only-on-Tuesdays newsletter of essays, images, and internet ephemera.
This week, the return of lost rituals.
Onward.
When prompted for a “fun” fact about my life in icebreaker situations I usually rely on this one:
I’ve only lived in 3 states (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas), but I’ve had a library card in 4 (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Wyoming).
For most of my life I’ve been a voracious reader. Before I could even actually read, I’d memorized the words of the classic, Goodnight Moon—I think my parents realized I wasn’t actually reading when they noticed I was holding the book upside down. As a child I devoured books–Hank the Cowdog, Redwall, Harry Potter–often under the covers lit by a flashlight long past my bedtime. Accelerated Reader programs meant I got “paid” for reading harder and harder books and taking tests on them. I remember going to the Midland Public Library at least once a week with my younger brother and mom to check out stacks of books–Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, and Stephen Hunter at the recommendation of my surly, WWII-buff, pyrotechnician pediatrician—that I would plow through between swim practices. High school and college were filled with philosophy, art history, and photography books.
Suffice to say, I spent most of my life identifying as a “reader”.
I cannot exactly pin down when that changed, but I have a reckon that sometime between the insanity of the Trump administration news cycles and the crushing uncertainty of the early pandemic I watched many of my beloved rituals and habits completely fall apart, the longest running of those being reading.
My guess is that between working remotely all day and reading or watching all the devastating news in the other hours, I maxed out my capacity for actual good reading. I struggled with long form articles, and could barely make progress through books. My 40+ books a year trickled to a paltry 3 and even those felt like a slog.
I lost the fire for writing by hand too, with my beloved Hobonichi journaling habit falling by the wayside, resulting in a nearly empty book for the year. My Field Notes collection lay largely unused as my desire to jot down quick thoughts and the valuable words of others dried up.
It was strange to lose these hallmarks of myself. It should come as little surprise that around the time my reading and personal writing fell apart, Bird Mail Season 01 unceremoniously ended.
Two years without any reading of consequence would be unheard of to my younger self, but that’s pretty much what happened.
But friend, I AM BACK.
Thanks to a wonderful book called The Optimist by David Coggins I have fallen back into reading in a grand way. I followed The Optimist with Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style, and then rejoined the world of fiction in a race against Bird with the delightful yarn, The Lincoln Highway.
Now, I’ve got a stack of physical books, a Kindle full of library books—if you don’t have a library card and Libby for e-books you are seriously missing out—and soon a second library card(!) in my current locale of Boulder, Colorado—add it to my “fun” fact list.
Gathered Links
I would love your recommendations to add to my list. I cannot promise I will get to them soon, but perhaps a very well-written rec will bump it up the list.
Your friend,
Bruce
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