I love to read, but sometimes it’s not about me.
I love to read. Like, I really, deeply love to read. Always have. I have very strong memories of very specific books from a young age. When I got lost as a child in Barnes & Noble, I know that we were there looking for Elmer and the Dragon (the sequel to My Father’s Dragon). I have vivid memories of my mom bringing home the first Harry Potter book* when I was probably six and me sitting on the couch just devouring it, as I did with each one after that. I was forever getting in trouble for staying up really late reading sneakily, and I have always been able to get lost in a book, to the point where I don’t want to do anything besides read.
I love the smell of books, I love the feel of books. I’ll read my Kindle if it gets a book into my hands faster and let me take more books with me. As a result, I always scoffed at audiobooks. One year, for Christmas, my little sister got the book-on-CD version of The Akhenaten Adventure – I think there were something like fourteen discs. I started listening to it to fall asleep. I checked out all the subsequent books in the series from the library, but never that one, because I practically knew it by heart. Years later, I downloaded the audiobook and, honestly, I still turn it on and fall asleep to it when my brain won’t shut down for anything else. To me, audiobooks were something to have on in the background, to fall asleep to. Why would I deprive myself of the joy of looking at words on a page, of seeing the new chapter header and of being able to hear the characters in my own voice? That didn’t make any sense to me.
Then, earlier this year, the world exploded. Everything is the worst, but there are glimmers of hope peeking through the dark clouds. The systemic injustices that BIPOC have been facing forever are being thrust into the forefront, and the movement to drive change is not going anywhere. My privileged white self has a lot of learning to do to even begin to catch up on understanding. Of course I, like many people, turned to books. I desperately wanted to read everything I could get my hands on, to try and begin to learn and understand something that I was never taught. I will be honest, it took me a few months to get there. I spent a lot of time initially overwhelmed and frustrated and lost by the sheer amount of information that was (seemingly) “all of a sudden” available. Then I’d feel guilty for being overwhelmed and frustrated – after all, this is something that I am getting the opportunity to learn about, rather than an experience that is simply part of the reality of how so many people have to fight to survive. I struggled to figure out the “right” book to pick up. Then I had a baby and felt like I didn’t have time to do the books justice. Turns out, none of this should be about me, and not having time is bullshit. I just wasn’t ready to do the work, and cleaning my house was easier mentally than facing reality. Again, the amount of privilege is really remarkable, when I step back and look at it.
I don’t remember how it happened, but one day I downloaded the audiobook of Austin Channing Brown’s I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. I noted at the time that the book was read by the author – good, I prefer that in general. I popped in one of my earbuds and started listening to the book while I folded laundry. That day, and the next several, I listened to Austin speak while I did dishes, tidied the house, and in the car while I drove to my parents’ house. I chuckled to myself and sometimes I cried while I put mugs back in the cabinet. When I finished I’m Still Here, I started Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah. Again, laughter, tears. I was a little surprised by my emotional response to both books, because while books can often make me feel something, I’m not used to the emotions welling all the way up to the surface. Midway through Born a Crime, I realized why it was happening: I was listening to Austin and Trevor tell their own stories in their own voice. I wasn’t relying on my own internal voice, which comes from such a different place of lived experience, to convert the words on the page to a narrative. The audiobook provided the opportunity for me to start listening (by allowing me to make the time), but I realized that I would prefer listening this way even if I wasn’t doing anything else at the same time.
I’m listening to Michelle Obama read Becoming now, and I have How to Be an Antiracist queued up next. I took a seminar through the library and the facilitator (Kenesha Lewin, who was wonderful) recommended Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, so I downloaded that too. I’m still way behind on my learning, and it takes me longer to listen to the books than it would to read them, but I’m not sure that that’s a bad thing. I listen and I absorb. I can pause when I need to sit with something. I have no excuses for not having time to listen because I am doing some other task. Most importantly, I feel like I’m getting a little bit closer to understanding what the author wants me to focus on, rather than putting my own emphasis on their words. This feels important with any book, really (I have loved listening to Brené Brown read her books), but in a world where whiteness overpowers so much already, it seems especially important to promote space for Black (and BIPOC overall) authors to tell their own stories as they intended them to be heard.
I still love to read words off a page myself – that’s never going to change. I’ll still want and need days where I bury myself in a novel about summer on Nantucket or a crime-fighting duo, I’m sure. Those, I can read through at my usual warp speed, more or less retaining most of the details of the story and moving on at the end. Now, though, is the time for me to listen and to learn.
* Yes, JK Rowling has promoted (and doubled down on) some deeply disappointing and hurtful views regarding transgender women. I’m super salty about it and I’m always going to fight to disassociate my love for Harry Potter from her, because I refuse to let her ruin a deeply ingrained and wonderful part of my childhood. I recognize that the ability to do this itself comes from a place of privilege, and I’m sorry.
Hickmans at Home 