my lullaby

"With your work and your four kids, I'm just curious -- when do you find the time to read?!"

She knows about how much I love to read, books in particular. And, she had a point. It's been getting more challenging to get to read as much and as often as I used to. I didn't need to think hard for the answer. I told my workmate the truth: I read at night.

Reading at night is a vital element holding up the rest of why I am the way I am --  my habits (coffee *sigh*), my body clock, my work practices -- me! Which came first?  My love for reading.

Here are the top reasons I love to read books:

1.  Reading helps me sleep. I read to sleep. I simply can't fall asleep without reading.  TV may work sometimes, but not here at home, since, as a rule, the TV stays out of the bedrooms.  Needless to say, reading online has very little appeal for me -- I can't cozy up in bed, find the right position, turn on the lamp, then read from my laptop. The problems begin when the book is so interesting, I just couldn't put it down.
2.  Reading a book beats staring at people or playing with my mobile phone when waiting.  I also try to read during pockets of relative calm and quiet, taking whatever book I'm into with me everywhere.  Many times, I never get to open it.  Still, it makes me feel good to know I even attempt to.
3.  I learn a lot! Think about the range of topics, the wealth of information, the worlds you are allowed to enter, the minds you can be privy to, and the time-travel you get to do. I don't limit myself to bestselling novels, chicklit, and the classics.  I read trade books, self-help, etc. When I run out of something to read, I raid my kids' bookshelf (there are books I've forgotten there, like The Little Prince, The Wizard of Oz, Charlotte's Webb, and the Narnia series). or flip through magazines -- features are condensed biographies, trade books, and self-help stories.
4.  Ok, I'll admit it:  reading is an escape. My essential period of solace. When you can't physically go anywhere, a book can transport you to a place and time no one else can go to while you're there. This does not apply to the period when the hubby and the kids are jumping up and down needing my help and attention.  Hence, reading at night.
5.  I love the smell, the look, the feel of books.  They're handy to take around.  They work even without electricity.  They don't require batteries to work. They make a very good collection. I have gone through the obssessive wrapping with self-adhesive plastic just to take care of them.  I tried storing them in plastic bins, but really, a bookshelf works best, where I can view them, run my hand across the spines of the books all lined up like good little soldiers (haha), pull out a fave to check out memorable lines that have made an impact at one point in my life. And I shall get a bookshelf worthy of my precious worn-out mix of paperbacks and hardbound babies ASAP.

Today, I am trying to finish Zusak's "The Book Thief", and can't wait to do a refresher of "Romeo & Juliet", "Little Women", and "The Animal Farm", which my kids just finished for this school year's reading requirements. Oh, and there's one good thing about having lost some of the precious books of my youth in the last flood, I get to rebuild my Jane Austen collection.

Aha -- there you go.  Reading books, a passion that's always been there, but sadly taken for granted.  Yay!