read-alouds

Wow. Almost a month since I’ve logged on here, which isn’t exactly how May was supposed to go. I’ve been doing a couple of things consistently (obviously not blogging) that are small, but not insignificant, at least for my mental health.

I’m happy with the amount of movement I’m getting each day. My running isn’t ramping up in the way I expected, but I’ve run outside a few times, and I’m doing my best to get to 10,000 steps each day. Most days I’m at least managing a long walk, even if my speed doesn’t approach anything close to running.

The other thing happening daily are nightly read-alouds. I’ve been making a conscious effort to dive into other forms of writing besides my beloved novels, and poetry feels perfect at the end of a long day. It’s not the only time I open my books, but even if I’ve been distracted or busy, I can end the day with a single poem.

I read them aloud, then sometimes to myself in my head, then sometimes again. Finding the rhythm soothes me. It doesn’t soothe anyone in my house, apparently, since everyone declines nightly poetry time, which never would have happened when my kids were toddlers and lived for nightly reading time. Luckily, I have one reading partner who doesn’t know the difference — Max.

He listens no matter what I read, without comment.

Some days I wish I could discuss with him, because some of my favorite poems leave me with more to wonder about than you might expect. When it comes to reading aloud, E.E. Cummings rises to the top of the pile again and again. Now, the poems themselves aren’t necessarily my favorite, though they might be if I understood more of what I was reading. Many nights, though, I find myself falling into the magic of the patterns, the sound, the way the words feel in my mouth. Other poets allow me to fall into situations and meanings, like Mary Oliver, but Cummings, during many reads, is all about the visceral feel of the words as they exit my lips.

I come back to them in the daylight and parse phrases apart, sometimes feeling confident, sometimes just wondering. (Wondering things like, “Why didn’t I study poetry more during my undergraduate degree?” in addition to “What is that supposed to mean?”)

I’ll feel the meaning another day, I tell myself, drifting to sleep. When that happens, I really do feel like the poem is singing its own little lullaby.