I enjoy reading. I don't do it enough. When I was alone and lonely, I spent a lot of time escaping into the pages of novels. I would pick a place to go and lose everything about myself in the setting and lives of the characters, because I didn't want to deal with the life in front of me. It was easier to wallow in someone else's misery. It was portable. It was disposable.
I have been in a deep state of love for the last three years to the man of my dreams; the man I never thought would find his way to me and for some odd reason, despite his love of reading, we have done very little of it. One thing leads to another and time gets taken away from that particular leisure and put into something mundane like laundry or dishes.
The other day I said fuck it. I'm going to sit on the porch with the dog and read a book. It was the nicest hour I had given myself in a long time. Now the book I'm about to talk about isn't the book I was reading, but it got me to thinking about books that left an impression on me and led me to collect the books of those authors.
Years ago I read Ursula Hegi's book Stones from the River. I think it was on Oprah's book list and yes, I did used to watch that damn show, but that is besides the point. The story is about a woman named Trudi Montag who has dwarfism during the rise of World War II in Germany. It speaks to her struggles about being different, especially in a time where different was a death sentence, and how she triumphs over these adversities.
I didn't identify with the character so much as I loved the texture of Ursula Hegi's writing. It is stark and honest. It has vulnerability and brash truth that feels like guilt and innocence at the same time. This book stayed with me for some reason. It is not my favorite book of hers but it is the one that comes to mind when I hear her name. I think it came along in a time when I was stumbling out of my Stephen King phase and branching out into the world of different writers. I had just moved to Seattle and the plethora of book stores and libraries lent me to discovery.
My favorite book from Hegi is a collection of short stories called Hotel of the Saints. I loved it so much I sent my only copy to my best friend to read and haven't been able to find a replacement copy yet. Sigh.
“She also told me it wore down her spirit to live in the desert landscape that was parched by midsummer, to plant a garden each spring and struggle to keep it alive past July.” -Ursula Hegi
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