“What are you reading?” Alex said as I climbed back in the car.
A few days before the experiment started, I had finished the third book in a six book magical realism/romance series that’s set in Houston. I went ahead and put the physical copies of the next two books on hold and we had stopped by the library to pick them up on the way home from an errand.
I looked down at the book cover of the paperback romance. A giant orange sticker with a heart and the word ROMANCE was stuck on the spine. The woman on the cover is wearing a dress that shows off her perfect cleavage and her hair and make-up are impeccably done. The man is handsome in a boring kind of way, although he’s making a face like he smelled a fart. Both of them look like they’re standing in front of a wind machine. For a middle-aged woman, I have rather embarrassing taste in literature but it’s usually not on full display.
“Well,” I hemmed and hawed for a moment, “This is the fourth book of the series, so I’ve been reading it. You just didn’t know because I was reading them on the Kindle.” I turned the books face down on the floor of the car for the ride home.
Someone asked me today, “What’s been the hardest part of your 2002 project in the first two days?”
Without hesitation, my answer was, “Not having my Kindle at night.”
Not that long ago, I was an avid e-reader hater. “Oh, I prefer physical books,” I’d tell anyone who would listen, convinced of my stance that physical books were better, more superior.
When COVID hit, I tried the drive-through book pick-up at the library, but when I got home, all I could picture was the spiky, spherical COVID germs lurking in the pages of the book, waiting to jump out and infect me. I could Clorox the cover, but not every page.
I begrudgingly purchased an Amazon Kindle, the kind that’s only for reading. I set up my Libby account and dutifully connected it to my library cards. (Texans, you can get a Houston library card for free!)
I never looked back.
The Kindle just makes reading so easy. I can make the text as large as I want. I bought a little display stand that holds the Kindle perfectly so I can lay on my side, my natural sleeping position, and read, turning the page with a gentle tap of my finger. I can check out and return books from my bed. I read every night before falling asleep and if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night, the Kindle is perfectly backlit to not disturb Alex.
This piece of technology? It’s a good one. I took it for granted. But not any more.
I really miss it.
The first night of the project, I laid in bed on my back, the head of my adjustable bed lifted. I grasped the cheesy romance novel and fussed with Alex’s borrowed book light. I finally settled, opened the first page, and gasped aloud.
The text was so tiny as to be almost unreadable, like little sugar ants marching across the page. I squinted through the cone of yellowish light from the book light. Do I need reading glasses? A pair of binoculars? I know they make large print books. Did I miss something and actually get a small print book?
I tried to turn on my side but the book lamp sagged to the mattress and i couldn’t figure out how to hold the book so I could read both pages. I finally gave up and flipped to my back again, sighing heavily.
When I started to get tired, I set the book on my bedside table, but in the morning, I awoke to an upsetting tableau. Sometime in the night, the whole contraption–the book and the giant, top-heavy book light–fell off my bedside table. The bookmark, which was last seen wedged somewhere in the 300 page book, was laying happily beside the book on the carpet.
I sighed again.
The second night, I woke up at 2:00 a.m., went to pee, and climbed back in bed. My midnight ruminations started. The ones where I start to run ‘what if’ scenarios for every possible worrying situation in my life. “I need to read,” I thought to myself as I watched the minutes tick by on the digital clock on my dresser. Usually, I escape my nighttime whirring thoughts by retreating into outer space or a dystopian hellhole so ridiculous that it could never been real, all from the very convenient, very slim, backlit Kindle. Alas, Kindles were not around in 2002.
I snuck the book off my bedside table and felt around the for the power button on the booklight. I clicked it on and it was as if a magician had summoned the sun right into our bedroom. The light flung itself to the far reaches of the room, the ceiling, the corners. Alex’s eyes snapped open.
“Oh, sorry,” I whispered as I clicked the light back off and issued a heavy sigh.
It seems strange that something so small could make such a big difference, but it does, apparently.
My goodness, it does.
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