...bring a book!

I recently found myself getting some personal time with gray walls and runways at my local airport, due to an unfortunate series of cancellations. And as I waited, watching my flight get delayed, then delayed again, then ultimately canceled, I finally had some chance to get some quality reading done. While I wasn't flying into DC, I at least had 1940s South Africa and a family's demise in front of my eyes.

It's harder than I would like to admit, to find time to read. But last Wednesday night, and then on the plane Thursday and Friday, I had nothing to do but pour over that book, and finally, finally, get to read. I shot through the first two sections and made good progress on the third.

It's easy to forget how great reading can be. While I was frustrated and tired, I could just escape into a book, where my problems seemed trivial, and worry about characters whose lives had become very important to me. They took me away from the black vinyl chair I was sprawled in, from the gray walls and shut-down shops, and let me pretend that it wasn't an airport I was trapped in, but Johannesburg.

Books let you do that. They take you away from your problems, your issues, and give you someone else's (someone whose problems are almost always way worse than yours) and let you see how they deal with them. If the author is a great one, then you might even learn a thing or two about yourself and your own problems along the way.

I did, fortunately, get to spend a day in DC. And even though the time around that one day was spent waiting (and waiting, and waiting), I was also spending time with my book, in the world of paper and ink.

And that, ladies and gents, is not such a bad place to be.