So I read a bit in 2019

Weirdly, I’m sitting in a hospital room with my sister who resolved to donate a kidney last January and then, yesterday, did just that. I suppose that resolve rather puts my own resolutions to shame.

Image is of book “If My Body Could Speak” by Blythe Baird.

My 2019 resolution was more of an intention than a resolution — I set out to read a book a week for the entire year. I grew up an avid reader. When I went to college I’d slowly moved from reading for pleasure to reading assigned books and texts. My passion for reading shifted and then, in the wake of an early pregnancy that pulled me from college, and then adding to my family (three boy babies in three and a half years) I nearly ceased pleasure reading altogether. Excuses of busyness and work, kids’ events or community involvement had me often exhausted but seldom retreating into a book. My boys are now significantly older and as I’ve encouraged them to read, I wanted to set an example.

For several years I’d had the background thought, “I should read more often,” but I had never quantified a solid goal with any accountability. As I’d begun to read for pleasure in my kids’ middle and high school years, I found myself gravitating towards certain issues and books related to equality and social justice and policy and change — so beginning to keep a record and really educate myself was a desire — I just hadn’t done it with regularity or commitment. In the past I’d had a generalized…