Where does the time go?
January 2013 was just yesterday. She remembers settling down happily on the couch, which is piled with many fluffy pillows, to lie on in case she decides to take a snooze in the middle of watching CNN. How happy she was to imagine a whole, blank year ahead of her, a year which meant (self thought) 80 books at least.
And here it is the end of 2013, and she’s read 29 books — far, far below her yearly average.
She loves the book she is currently reading: Gulag: A History, which won the Pulitzer Prize several years ago. She loves it because it gives her occasion to say, over and over: Self, you are not being monitored. Your mail is not being opened. You are not confined to a warehouse for 12 hours a day. It is winter but not cold. You have half a ham left in your refrigerator. Your bank account is still at a comfortable level.
Then, because it is such a beautiful day, and because self is happy, she turns to the literary journal War, Literature & the Arts. What better time to read about war than when it is a beautiful day in December? She begins reading a personal essay by David D. Butler called “Long Time Gone: The Year Dirty Harry was Shot.” Here’s how it opens:
In December of 1970, I turned twenty-five. Seven years earlier, I could have made war fighting the Viet-Cong. With my twenty-fifth birthday, the insurance carrier thought I was now old enough to drive for the San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI).
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 
Leave a Reply