READING

the first girl scout badge i received was not for building a fire or toasting a marshmellow- it was for reading.

one flaw with my reading interests has been the gravitational pull toward the pragmatic and practical books. hence, book selections lean toward autobiographical. this is particularly evident in the fiction writers that i love. look on the revered bookshelf... Fredrick Buechner, Madeline L'Engle, CS Lewis, Anne Lammot, Annie Dillard... all great fiction authors. BUT the proportion of their books is outragiously weighted toward books they write about real life, not their fantasy.

today, i am voicing the need for more mythos in my existance. as a person trying to make their way in the world, i felt woefully unprepared- without tools for living. still feel that way. so the reaching out through literature was always to shore-up the empty or fragile places in myself.

fantasy reading was impractical because in myth there could be a deus ex machina that arrives and makes it all okay.

as someone desperate for it to be all okay, i did NOT want to have false hopes dashed.

today two things are different in my understanding that make me ready for more fiction and fantasy.

one - is that a trusted writers will not write untruths. they will be true to their characters and readers and not pull a fast one.

two- is that occasionally i do see a deus ex machina in real life.