I came across this article this evening that rang very true.
When Etienne and I started dating after we had been friends for a long long long time (since primary school) he had to pass a couple of tests. I wasn't going to open up my heart to just any guy in a hurry, I had just had it trampled on in a rather public and spectacular way, so I was reluctant to say the least.
There was the kiss test – which he passed with flying colours. The food test, the conversation test, the music test (a big one!) and lastly, the book test.
It's like this you see, I could have married someone that doesn't love music, but I could not ever marry someone that didn't love books as much as I do. So I made him read some of the books that had moved me the most at that point in my life. I can't remember all of them and I took myself very seriously back then, but amongst them were The Bridge Across Forever (Richard Bach) and The Celestine Prophecy (had a good giggle at that one). Granted, a lot of them were tough going for a sweet guy like Etienne, but he read every single one of them and then some.
In turn he introduced me to writers that I have fallen in love with since and opened up genres to me that I never would have bothered with otherwise.
What was the one thing you would not compromise in a relationship?
A very kind and generous person (whom I shall not mention by name purely because I refuse to share her) gave me a Kindle Fire as a gift recently.
We are by no means a technologically challenged household, but there is not a tablet in sight at Casa Roux, purely because we have some other pressing financial commitments (bond, food, clothes, childcare) and we just haven't been able to pinch off the money. So you can only imagine how completely beside myself I was when I received this gift!
What I didn't realize was how it would change my life.
For starters I no longer have to hold a book on cold nights. I simply stand the kindle on its side against Etienne's arm (he lies reading on his stomach) and only a finger has venture out from under the cover to flip the page.
It's small and light and I can take it with me wherever I go, so I'm never bored. Fair enough, it is vying for space in my large bag with my phone and crochet bag, but hey.
I feel a lot better about killing trees. Yes, I know that I'm reading on an electronic device and someone somewhere will be able to prove that it's actually worse for the environment, but still.
It's generally speaking a lot cheaper than buying hardcover books.
I do however find some things harder now that I'm reading on a kindle.
I find it harder to memorise book and author names if it's not someone I've read before.
I miss being able to quickly refer to something on the back of the book about the promised storyline. The outside of a book is a little like getting to know a new person. You flirt with and remember the cover and the picture and if you come across the book at a later stage your memory is easily jogged.
I worry about the future of writers and how being a writer will be redefined in many ways. How will you be noticed in the throng of on-line voices?
I worry about our neighborhood bookshops. Not too much, remember the trees, but people that love books work there. Where would those people go?
I wonder about how it will change bookclubs. There's something ritualistic about dragging a box of books with you to book club once a month and scratching around, looking for something that catches your eye. How will it work in future? Will women huddle around their kindles/iPads in their own lounges in future? Isn't that a bit lonely?
How do you read books? If you read on a device, how did it change your relationship with books? Should we still be calling them books?
Etienne and I take turns to read to the kids at night and make lunches for the next day. It generally takes longer to prepare lunches, but the chance of injury is considerably less.
At the appointed time we have a race down the passage to the bathroom where we fight to brush teeth and end up wiping toothpaste off every available surface. After shouting because Daniel scraped his dropped toothpaste off the floor with his toothbrush. Or because someone tried shoving their toothbrush up the spout of the tap.
We then arrive in the girls' room where we put their pillows on the floor. (At this point I need to add that this whole lying-on-the-floor-reading-thing was not my idea. I blame Etienne for this incredible lack of judgement.) We then have an extended negotiation about who wants what book. Followed by another extended negotiation about who gets to go first.
And this is where it gets dangerous. Reading to the child in question entails the child being read to lying on Mommy/Daddy's back. Which is more of a bouncing repertoire of knees to the parental kidneys on a good night. This is after hopping up and down on your back.
The children that are not directly being read to ask where things are in the book. They specifically ask about things that are in plain sight on the pages of books that they have read approximately 400 000 times before.
The children that are not directly being read to are also always keen to brush hair. Specifically the hair of the parent that is trying to read whilst being used for a trampoline whilst fielding questions on the picture content of the book.
You know what's the saddest about all of this? I absolutely love the chaos of reading time. I love being in such close proximity to my kids so I can rub my cheek against that of the child lying on my back or tickle the back of one of them lying next to me. I love that they love books and don't fight about being read to. I love that they love being with us. And I love their clean just-bathed-ready-for-bed smell.
So, much as I whine about chaos I love it. Do I really want angelic children that sit quietly whilst being read to? Hell. No.