I spent all afternoon cleaning my apartment, listening to Soundscapes and looking out my windows at the beautiful fall colors. When I finally sat down on my bedroom floor to reorganize my books and separate the promotional product catalogs from what was really important, I came across a book I had purchased months ago.
Mitch Albom‘s For One More Day caught my attention. I had it sitting amongst a pile of greeting cards and half full journals with full intention of reading it…sometime. What I read today instead was Mitch’s introduction. He writes that this story is not about himself, but about a man he met and the conversation he had with him along with other personal notes and journals from this man he spoke with. What I like about Albom’s writing tone is that it’s like a personal conversation with him. I watched the made for TV movie version of one of his better known novellas The Five People You Meet in Heaven and the two or three other times I watched it to really understand it.
Since I read the entire introduction, I really do intend to start reading it tonight. Because of this these lines,
“Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more convesation, one more change to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back….What if you got it back?”
Mitch got me to thinking about the people I lost in my life through death, moving or just somehow disappearing from my life, and what I could learn from him and his conversation with Charles “Chick” Benetto.
Reading, I mean reading really good throught-provoking, emotionally-involved literature, is what I lack in my life right now and I really miss it. I have the time to read now that I’m not burdened with planning and grading really awful high school English essays & homework (this is another whole blog of itself!) I have a goal of reading 5-7 fiction books a year, ha ha, yeah sounds funny, but with this goal I found myself reading beyond the 1/2 dozen and looked forward to finding literature that moved me. Mitch Albom’s For One More Day has moved me. However, I also started reading, with the influence of my son, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which is an equally personally involved book of literature.
I encourage each one of you reading this blog and those that you associate with, to find a book that sucks you in into an abyss of thought and influence. Knowledge is power and power to provoke thought into another person by way of reading is immeasureable.
Reading also improves your English vernacular – I love words. I wish someone would make me remember 10-20 words a week to improve my oral and written English.
There’s much I want to read, the Sales Journal for insurance agents, that article in the numerous magazines cluttering my living room, the stack of books on my coffee table given to me by others, the Rotary magazine, AAA Going Places, the Bible, quote books, I love quotes, quick inspiration for the moment, I collect them actually. And articles about the business in which I work, investmenting.
But a good read is energizing, soothing, thought provoking. I recently read with great interest, a book my daughter “loaned” to me, which she had not read. You may not have heard of the book, but I hope that will change, Dark Enough To See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky, written by a woman whose ancestors were among the first settlers in Jamestown. She tells the story of her 13th great-grandmother who left the comfort of England with her husband and young daughter, leaving an older daughter behind in England with relatives.
It was one of those few books that I looked forward to reading and was caught up in the characters and their journey into this new world. I “loaned” the book to a friend, which by the way, has not returned the book…… Recently, I began reading a book (used) that my daughter had given me because she knew I enjoyed the author, Anne Lamott. It’s called Blue Shoe, a complex story of a dysfunctional family (all of us are dysfunctional to some degree) trying to function as best they could in an equally dysfunctional world.
I have read or listened to a couple of other books by Anne Lamott, her books are edgy, characters are messy because real life is messy. She struggles with her spiriturality, but is a hard core believer in the God of the Universe. I like her because she is real.
On another note, I remember going to the movies in the 60′s to see Farenheit 451, was quite controversial at the time. I rented the DVD For One More Day from the library and was quite moved by it.
Yes, that is one of our regrets when someone we love passes, if we had only “one more day.” I think of my mother who passed away at 57 when I was 35 years old and I wasn’t there to see her for one last time. My own daughter will turn 39 soon and I am thankful I am still here.
So, read! Hug those you love and tell them you love them every chance you get. Share a good book with someone you love today.