When I graduated from high school here in northern Colorado, family friends gave me Gretel Ehrlich’s “The Solace of Open Spaces” because I was going to the University of Wyoming, and the book is iconically Wyoming, and, indeed, Ehrlich has been called “the Whitman of Wyoming.”
I didn’t read it. I lied and said I did, but I didn’t.
That was three decades ago. But I still have it, and I know it changed my life. I’d gone from a book-a-day kiddo to a young woman who didn’t read much in high school, despite my professed love of books. To this day, I don’t know what was going on, except that my brain was flooded with boy obsession and/or I was simply suffering from the brain dysfunction caused by being a teen.
I can’t remember what exactly inspired me to pick up that book a year after it had been gifted to me — probably the winds outside my Larmie dorm room were howling — but I did, and I fell in love, and I felt seen, and I felt understood, and suddenly I was reading again, and soon after I wrote my own stories about life in the rural West, and then I became an author (which I’d always planned on being, yet somehow had avoided doing all the necessary work, such as reading).
Now, I read. I read because I enjoy reading. My #shelfie list on my socials shows about two books a week on average — about a hundred a year. Some I skim (the older I get, the more I find this acceptable), some I move through slowly, savoring each word. Most are contemporary authors, and about half are fiction, half nonfiction, with poetry thrown in in small delicious bits. I like to think I have good taste — I believe quality matters, and what we put in our brains is just as important as quality foods we put in our body. But also, they simply amuse me, delight me, inform me, keep my brain active, keep my heart expanding. I find reading fun.
Many people admit to me that they’ve quit reading. Maybe it’s aging or phones or ADHD or the pandemic, but they find it hard to sink into a good book. I get it. I found the same to be true, both in high school and during the COVID years. Same dysfunction, perhaps, except instead of thinking about boys, I was wondering how and when the world would end.
Regardless, I did indeed find reading a chore. So I did what the experts advise — set a timer and forced myself to sit still and do it anyway, because, yes, brains can be retrained. Sometimes a little tenacity and determination and willpower is a thing we can insist upon to ourselves, for ourselves. For weeks, the first 10 minutes were fidgety and painful. But then: A settling. A quiet. An immersion. The book’s magic took over. Then I finally got addicted to audio books, so that during fidgety times, I could still be reading while I walked or cleaned house.
All sorts of studies show why reading is good for us. Empathy and expansion being the most important, to my mind. Basically, I think, they teach us how to be better people — and what, really, is more important than that? Reading also improves vocabulary and social skills, improves cognitive skills, and may prevent cognitive decline. The benefits are as obvious to me as snow being cold. And there’s nothing better than curling up with a book near a fire with the snow flying, as it is now.
As a reader, I know how books expand me as I sit by that fire. As an author, I’ve had the great privilege of hearing the same from others. Like, the people who wrote to say an article of mine helped their marriage after a short Modern Love piece in the New York Times. A single and reluctant teen mother saying she now felt she could be a better mother after reading “Sky Bridge.” Partners of those who have Alzheimer’s wrote to say that “Stars go Blue” helped them feel less frustrated by the challenges, because at least there was one fictional character out there who was losing her sh*t.
I don’t say this to brag, or out of ego. On the contrary, I say this because I acknowledge the way that books form community. Reduce our ego so that we can feel less “us” and more a part of a complex and diverse world. It’s a sweet paradox: Though we sit alone reading, we come into connection. It’s just cool.
So, yeah, I still have that battered copy of “The Solace of Open Spaces” on my bookshelf. For 30 years, I’ve moved it about. I don’t remember a single other graduation gift or who gave me what or if they gave me anything at all. As they say, a sweater or a necklace never changed a life. Books do, though. So gift a book or 10 this year — and support indie bookstores, authors, art, ideas — and best of all, perhaps, expand someone’s life.
Laura Pritchett writes a monthly column about loving Colorado and issues in the West. She directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University. Her novels, including two forthcoming ones, are all set in contemporary Colorado. More at www.laurapritchett.com.
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