Between the Lines.

Last month I silenced the roar of social media with one joyful click. Evenings have turned into a books, blanket, & teacup sort of affair. Daylight hours devoted to writing are, well, if still distracted, at least distracted with housework instead of scrolling.

With the arrival of the darkest weeks of the year, inner stillness has become my sanctuary.  Even the piled books teetering on my beside table seem noisy to me–and I find myself wondering what it would be like to just…stop reading.

What would it look like to embrace silence? To be surrounded in it as in a cloak, so that I am enfolded in quiet along with the darkness and cold that night has become.

At least, this is what I was wondering until I got hold of NPR’s 2019 booklist, at which point I put another dozen books on hold at the library.

In the spirit of the archive, here lies the recently excavated strata from my bedside table, revealing, as ever, a snapshot of my  current self (not everything is pictured):

I found books on parenting without power struggles (help me, Rhonda!), a memoir on living without technology, a birder’s story of her unmechanized crossing of the Alaskan wilderness, at least five poetry books, the beautiful short story collection Sabrina & Corina. There’s more, but you get the idea.

Meanwhile, here are my dark season, Advent readings. The ones I swept everything else aside for:

And here’s the one I couldn’t resist at all, holy intentions or not:

What are you reading? I’ll put your recommendations on hold at the library…in January!!