A personal positive I have found with this pandemic tailspin is the extra time allowed me to renew my love of reading. I can’t remember a time that I haven’t had a book or three in the works, but this past couple of decades of personal growth has seen mostly non-fiction and text books. There was no time to read for pleasure – I was busy becoming!

I was a real reader when I was a kid. I recall often sitting in a corner of the school library, trying to find something I hadn’t already read. True to form, I usually brought Nancy Drew home but I secretly checked to see what the Hardy Boys were getting up to first. Judy Blume? Was my hero. Then Sweet Valley High to Harlequin to Danielle Steele and beyond as I advanced into my teens.

Romantic love stories became my jam. Everything became about love – it was all I saw. I read so many stories. And I loved loving people so I knew romantic love was going to be A.Mazing! And I wanted it. Oddly enough, Judy Blume’s characters grew up, too, and her stories were so relatable – Forever is one of the few novels that remains on my bookshelf. “I do love you. For now. But I could never say forever.” And I never have. (Because, you know, Wifey!)

My fiction picks evolved as I matured and I got into more mysterious stuff like John Saul and Stephen King. That was when I began going without sleep to finish a book. There was no glory greater than the book I couldn’t put down. In retrospect, I think The Celestine Prophecy significantly altered my life’s course. It was the first time I recall understanding that the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy, which I had been warned against my whole life, could be used for good. Kind of like “be careful what you wish for because you might get it”… I was, like, okay! I’ll be careful, promise! As I packed my car and headed out west.

The need to read slowed considerably in my late 20s. Love and life were a lot different than I had expected, romance gave way to seven habits and reading became about learning. And I had questions, let me tell you. Why wasn’t I perfect at all times? What was I doing wrong? How could I do better? How could I be better? Surely I would be perfect eventually.

I read about how to make friends and influence people, I read about mars and venus, and I even read a surprising number of books written for dummies. I wasn’t offended. All of these books have value and helped me become the person I am today – tremendously imperfect and I like me just fine! – yet that prophecy I was trying to fulfill took me away from fiction for longer than I realized.

But what I’ve learned during this terrible time of isolation is that a good story can be really good company. Right now I’m reading The Hate You Give and it is so well written that the words on the page make me feel like this woman is sitting across from me and telling a riveting story of the time she witnessed one of her best friends being killed by a cop, and what it felt like to live in her shade of skin through the things that happened after. Very timely. Very enlightening. Very engrossing.

Anyway, while replying to an invitation to a nice, socially distanced B.Y.O.Lunch party my very dear friend is hosting next week, I was signing off and wanting to express my excitement in seeing them and was reminded of a story I read as a kid where pen pals would end their letters in the most silly ways like ‘Yours ’til the kitchen sinks’ and ‘Yours ’til Niagara Falls’. I used to have a lot of fun thinking up my own.

I don’t really know why I’m telling you this. I guess it’s just that, maybe, if you’re lonely, it might feel like I’m sitting across from you and telling a story about how I love to read, and maybe it’ll make you feel a little less alone.

Yours ’til the cookie crumbles,

Bev