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Sometime in the last few years, I lost the ability to sit down with a good long novel and fall into it, reading with both abandon and focus, letting the world around me fade while I entered that twilight zone that is the story. For a long time now I’ve been buying books at the same pace as when I could read. Instead of going to our local bookstore, if I’m honest, I know that I should just stand in front of one of the shelves in my little study, and pick a book off the shelf that I haven’t read yet, and pretend I’ve just picked it out and purchased it and brought it home. But each book on the shelf seemed to whisper to me that there was something wrong with it: too long, too silly, too odd; too hard, too easy, too complicated. About a man — no thanks. About a woman — no thanks. About a dog — no thanks.

I’m a little embarrassed to tell you but there are quite a few of these books, bought and then sloughed off somewhere in the house, eventually put on the shelf, unread.

I just went and counted, for the sake of being really honest here, all the books on my shelves I haven’t read yet: 81 so far. I’m sure there are more of these orphans, laying around downstairs or at my office.

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This “81” includes books I bought long before I truly realized there was something the matter with my reading psyche. I believe it goes back as far back as 2015, when I put forth one last huge effort at my work as a professor, in order to be promoted in rank. When that effort was over I realized that the achievement had taken something out of me that wasn’t so easy to put back. I don’t have a name for it. I suspect it has something to do with my youth. I don’t mean that in an ironic or funny way: I honestly feel now that the twilight is approaching, and I’m aware for the first time that this time in my life is a fleeting – fragile – beautiful time.

Aside from all that, I know that all those un-read, purchased, books are silently testifying that something went missing — something went wrong. Something missing from the books? Something wrong with the act of reading?

And just recently I realized for the first time that it’s not the books that are the problem.

It’s something about my brain, my focus, my attention, my — my own deep self — that is struggling.

For a long time, I resisted thinking it was me: I could still teach, I could still write, I could still re-read an old favorite. And because I had this idea that it was something wrong with the books, I thought I could just keep looking for the perfect book and my groove would be back.

I wish I could tell you this re-discovery of my reading-groove was something I accomplished, something I did on purpose. I wish I could tell you “Oh gosh yes, it was a four-step path” or “a multi-level effort,” or “a developmental-nutritional-meditational approach I cobbled together from study and teachers,” … or therapy, or talking with friends.

But that would be dishonest. The truth is I have no idea why my ability to read novels evaporated. And I don’t know how it found its way back.

I think it has something to do with summer. Something to do with two (four? six?) years of bracing for the worst, ready for winter, and finding, in the bracing, just more exhaustion, not rest; just more of the “what ifs”, not faith or trust or hope. It was cold for a long time, is what it’s felt like, and now it’s starting to warm up.

Or is it that something has worked its way through me, like a silent poison, slowly being metabolized by my heart? Something has transformed. Or dissolved.

Sometime in the last six months, I’ve been unclenching my fists, and opening to the idea that my control over how All Of This might go, or end, or resolve, or even explode — my control over the Whole Catastrophe was a dream, and I was finally letting myself wake up.

I can read again; I’m not sure what it means, but something inside has loosened. When I figure out how it happened, I’ll let you know. For now, it’s enough to know — I can read again!

And I think I feel hope again.

Outside my window is a mountain laurel — not an extraordinary plant in any way but one: it’s not supposed to flourish in this neck of the world. I live in a place where it gets very cold, very often — and mountain laurels are a (smallish tree? largish bush?) plant that generally thrives down south — Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania. In those somewhat balmy states, mountain laurels grow happily into lush understory stalwarts. Smaller branches on a mountain laurel typically sport a handful of rich green leaves, a few inches long, an inch or two wide, ever-green in the winter, almond-shaped, a bit shiny (but not too shiny), a bit leathery (but not too leathery). Late in the spring, exquisite little wedding-cake white blossoms make tiny fragrant bursts of beauty every spring.

But this mountain laurel is up here where there are long stretches of sub-zero weather, and something about this winter was, in so many ways, brutal. The tale is told on the laurel: three or even four of every five-fingered leaf group is a dull, dark brown. The green leaves look much the same as always, but the effect on the overall plant is one of impending disaster.

In past winters, the plant seemed to tolerate these patches of sub-zero weather. But now, twenty years after we moved here, the laurel is clearly a bit tired, the way I sometimes feel now. It’s persisting, clearly: the green of the spared leaves is no different than in past springs we’ve seen together. It’s struggled, for sure. But I’m a bit concerned.

We’ll keep watching. The green tells me there’s life in it still, and where there’s life, as they say, there’s hope. It may be about to slip away from us in the next few years. My sense of cherishing it has grown with every spring and this spring I feel almost a sense of panic: so many brown leaves! What could it mean? Nothing good.

I just want one more spring with the laurel. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few years is the value of letting go of things and accepting that my role is often more to witness than to shape. That acceptance, often, is the place where peace lives.

So while I’m hopeful for this tree and its future, I’m going to use my gaze on the tree as a cue — my cue to remind myself of the nature of witnessing. To witness is to simply live in this moment, with the brown and the green together, and admire the tree’s yielding persistence to the vagaries of the weather. Just abiding, one more spring.

Soon – within a week – we’ll be re-claiming morning light, and paying for it with evening light. We all appreciate the extra hour of sleep this little trick with our time-pieces brings us. We look forward to “Fall back” as much as we dread “Spring ahead.” This post is just a reminder that sleep deprivation generally – eventually! — leads to a good night, as surely as sunrise follows sunset. Trying to keep your bedtime and wake time firm – regardless of how well or poorly you’ve slept – is one of the most important rules established for those with insomnia.

So if you’ve been suffering from insomnia, go ahead and take that extra hour if it naturally fills in with sleep. But then be aware of the usual pendulum like nature of sleep. Sleep will, like the seasons, like the moon, wax and wane. Yielding is the sweet spot: take the extra sleep if it comes. Let the raveled sleeve of care be knit up, as the Bard tells us.