I feel like I have come home. Reading and writing were my first loves. They helped me begin the process of understanding myself. They made me feel safe and helped me explore the world around me.
I published a reading list of books I want to read in 2021. Well, I suppose I am on track for it. I have read three of them in January alone. I planned to read those books throughout the year for fun. I also planned some small reading challenges based on specific projects for the year. I did not pick a specific challenge for January since I knew I would be busy. This is why I need reading lists.
I picked up Such a Fun Age on a whim. I had seen it recommended in a couple of places and got sucked into the story. I read it in just over 24 hours. I found another book—one that was not on my reading list for the year—that I picked up and finished in under 24 hours.
I read a lot, and sometimes, there are books I finish in a day. Books consume me, and I lack a certain amount of self-control when it comes to certain pleasures in life: coffee, reading, cheese, and Tabasco sauce being my most addicting.
Since joining my master’s program and thinking about what I want to do next in life, I have more or less stopped reading fiction. I push myself to always learn, whether it is research, health, or productivity-related.
I picked up this book, which I will discuss more extensively at the end of the month, and I felt that familiar, yet forgotten, compulsion to just keep reading. I have missed reading fiction—so much that I picked up another book and started two more today.
I have been on a non-fiction diet; as soon as I got a taste. Now, I am binge reading. I have spent the past two days reading, making reading lists, and imagining different challenges and projects. That creative part of my brain has been slowly stirring with the few books I have been reading on creativity. This has brought it back in full force.
I think back to writing projects, including the one I picked up again after eight years of not looking at it as a kind of procrastination from studying.
I imagine a future where I return to literature or writing in an academic setting.
All of this is because literature feels comfortable. I know the rules of reading and analyzing texts. I love being lost in worlds of other people’s creations and being able to return to the real world unharmed.
Anthropology deals with the real, everyday, messy (or inhumane) parts of life and often does not reach a point of resolution. This lack of resolution may be part of why I enjoy it—because it is real.
These past few days, falling down my fiction rabbit hole and starving for more has inspired me to include more fiction reading in my life, especially to contrast with my heavier academic reading. The writing and flow of contemporary literature can be so quick and light to read. The pacing that comes with creating a world and revealing information rather than trying to make an academic argument is a refreshing break. I am sure I needed it after this past year.
This project and my reading have reminded me that I am a writer and a storyteller. I love narrative as a way of communicating information. Anthropology is one way I want to study the world and one area I want to focus my writing, but it does not have to be the only one.
Many anthropologists I respect who do both Anthropology and writing. Zora Neale Hurston first inspired me to go into anthropology. I plan to follow in these footsteps. Or at least take them as a model and create my own path.
For now, I have two new books to read, and it looks like I am starting my Italian learning next week while I finish up my mental break.
But this minor detour has given me a lot of ideas for where I want to go in the coming months.