One Woman Revival

Summer in San Francisco usually gets a do over around September and even though I grew up here, somehow I still expect it to get cooler and for leaves to start falling from the trees. Instead, the days get warmer but there is still a cool breeze at night making it truly the best weather of the year. But technically September marks the beginning of Fall as well as being about six months out from my post in April resolving to read more so it’s a good time to check in on how that’s going. I’m still hovering around the 10-book threshold, which is more than I had finished at this time last year but not a surge in reading. I suspect it’s not that I have trouble focusing because I can listen to an hour-long deep dive into psychology and podcasts on just where we are in the autocracy spiral. The problem is that there are too many demands on my bandwidth.

But I remain committed in my resolution to read more as it is a truly a deeper connection that is made between the creator and their audience than in any other medium. I even journeyed to the public library at the start of the summer, entire blocks away from my apartment, in hopes of fanning the fire of my rekindled desire to read. To be honest, I felt stifled in libraries growing up when I would wait there after school for my parents to finish work. It did not help that my voice tends to carry so I had to take extra care to be quiet. Perhaps this was why I felt on guard as I entered my local branch, though the reigning librarian appeared to be even younger than me. Peering down the aisles of shelves, I did not know where to start. In my teenage years, I had discovered the romance section and, under the anonymity of the new self-check-out machine, taken home steamy novels which I could devour in the comfort of my bedroom. Let’s just say I read more than 10 books that year. But now as an adult, I was skeptical that there were new frontiers the library could reveal to me.

Standing uneasily between the rows of library books, I was about to pull the plug on this expedition when a section labelled “Parenting” caught my eye. I still had a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting which my late husband had ordered for us when we were trying to get pregnant but I had buried it into a drawer because I could not bear to look at it after he died. Now three years out from his passing, I had accepted the randomness of his death but could not give up on the idea of having children. So I borrowed two books on parenting and hurried out of the library. I had that same sensation of having contraband with me as when I checked out romance novels, as if this was an idea that I did not dare to think.

June, July and August passed. I read one of the two books, Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi, about a father trying to understand his role in his children’s lives while also incorporating mindfulness at every opportunity. Among the other books I read this year, the memoir Solito about a 13 year old boy who crosses the US/Mexico border, stands out as a painful narrative no person let alone a child should have to endure. The prospect of having children fills me with equal parts excitement and anxiety but I also cannot let the hope go. Earlier this month, I stopped at Black Bird Bookstore and Café in the outer Sunset. On entrance, it felt more like a coffee shop than bookstore with only a limited selection of titles on stylish balsa wood shelves.

But there was a leafy garden in the back which was an inviting space to mingle with several events planned here for October including a writing group, open mic and reading club. The children’s section in between the garden and the café was well stocked with a variety of diverse stories, and so had attracted city moms in yoga pants with their expensive strollers. I perused the bright covers in this section and could not help but wonder which books I would pick out if I had a child. And then I discovered the coziest reading nook complete with a giant stuffed bear, it was all I could do not to cry. While I am not sure when it will happen, maybe someday I will not just borrow the idea of parenting but can take it home to keep.