Upping My Reading Game

Plus, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order by Joan Wickersham, 2008, Harcourt

Yesterday I was furiously reading The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order by Joan Wickersham. It was a surprisingly engaging book, a memoir of a family trying to come to terms with a suicide, but ultimately, for me at least, an intergenerational saga that meandered over the rolling hills of Connecticut to pre-War Berlin to Manhattan’s Upper West Side, through psychiatrist’s offices, fourth grade classrooms, assisted living dining rooms, and neighbor’s kitchens. In it, I met Russian emigres, German modern dance innovators, failed businessmen, obsessed real estate brokers, handbag mavens, architects, and pins and needles tycoons.

I finished the book in two days, as I had another of Wickersham’s, her novel, The News from Spain: 7 Variations on a Love Story, next in my pile. The idea was that perhaps I could read both before flying north to take a writing workshop with her.

The reading crunch also coincided with the week I was retiring from education, a 10-year stint that began in Warsaw, Poland and concluded a few miles from Washington, D.C.. The career was one of several, the longest of which was a 12-year stretch on Wall Street, as unlikely a place to find an opera-loving, Italian major as any.

People tell me that I will absolutely love retirement, that I’ll never look back. For the most part, I believe them.

It’s not my first time. I ‘retired’ once before, in my late 30s after Wall Street, but I didn’t stay idle for long and was collecting a paycheck again less than a year later.

This time, though, retirement is at least more age appropriate.

Retirement is only one of two major life changes that I find myself dancing with this week. First-time homeownership hit me less than seven days ago, although that was only because my landlord decided to sell, and I didn’t want to relocate, but still, it was a hair-raising ‘move.’

During the home inspection, the guy turned to me and said, “You’re going to love being a homeowner.”

I couldn’t actually picture that. Whenever someone asks if I have children, I always chuckle and say, “I can barely take care of myself.”

I’m not big on certain types of responsibility, but well, okay, maybe I will like being a homeowner.

Life is full of the unexpected: for me, tiring of New York, moving to Poland then Taiwan and ultimately, Virginia, writing for the New York Daily News, rebalancing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equity portfolios, a later-in-life return to sailboat racing.

When you are about to retire, people ask you the usual questions.

“What’s the first thing you’re going to do?”

“Do you have any travel planned?”

None of these questions resonate for me.

My retirement goals are simple but feel daunting.

Keep the house clean.

Fix healthy meals.

Don’t get fat; get more fit.

Stay the hell away from social media.

Avoid isolation but only do things you really want to do.

A single friend said that once she retired everyone expected her to go traveling with them. I understood her existential dread. The other day, an acquaintance, thinking I must be already retired, asked if I would pick up a package for her.

Clean neat house, healthy meals. That’s my agenda. And when the housekeeping and cooking feel unattainable, I might just read more.

I had heard of someone who read a book a day, but I couldn’t remember the details. A Google search led me to Nina Sankovitch, whom Peter Applebome of the New York Times profiled in 2009, the year Sankovitch read a book a day and wrote about each on her blog, www.readallday.org.

I looked up the blog, available on Medium. In one post called "Raising Readers, " she writes:

Books provide companionship, guidance, comfort, escape, and pleasure. So much to be gained, and all by simply opening a book and starting to read.

Another of her entries, entitled "How to Read All Day," advises readers to always have a book with them and to read at every opportunity.

Read while waiting.
Read while eating.
Read while exercising.
Read before bed.
Read before getting out of bed.

Read instead of updating FB.
Read instead of watching TV.

Read instead of cutting the grass. Read instead of weeding. Read instead of vacuuming.
Read while vacuuming.

Read what you want.
Read a book a friend wants you to read.
Read a book a bookseller swoons over.
Read a book loved by your local librarian.

Read with your cat. Dog. Book group. Friend. Child. Child of Friend. Friend of Child.

(Sankovitch, How to Read All Day, September 27, 2016)

Finally, I remembered who the person was who I had originally heard about reading a book a day. The author Lauren Groff, whose book Matrix was one of my favorites last year, read 25 books a month for two years because she found herself unable to write after the attention her book Fates and Furies received.

If I find myself having difficulty navigating retirement, I may read a lot.

I might read a lot simply because I love reading.

I hope I read a lot because it’s essential to writing.