Reading Like Hell

I have been reading anything I can get my hands on, including bell hooks. At different times in my life I have tried reading her work but haven't been able to stay focused long enough to digest anything. For me, she is like Toni Morrison, unavailable, without devoting a serious amount of time to the task of reading her. But the other day I spent almost 8 hours in a bookstore thumbing through several of her books. For those of you who don't know, a lot of her chapters can stand alone, so I often look through the table of contents, pick an interesting chapter title, and dive in. This time, I picked up Where We Stand: Class Matters. I don't know how I feel about the fact that I found this book extremely accessible just yet, but I do know that I had been waiting for something that I could relate to that talks about what it is to come from a class different than the one they eventually settle into as an adult, and about what it is to come from lower-middle class America and survive in ivy academia. I had been thinking about what my experiecnes might be like when the time comes (if it ever comes) for us to buy a home. Will people take one glance at my cornrowed husband and declare that the house has been sold?

My recent devouring of so much text has also reminded me of my own committment to writing. I had already accepted that I have a story worth telling, but I have only begun to accept that not only am I the only one who can tell it, but that I actually have the skills to do it. Being confident in those skills is a double edged sword; Accepting that I can do it, makes me feel obligated to do it, and I hate feeling obligated.