Totally Be

  There are as many reasons to read as there are books in the world. Bestseller pushes, book club picks, marketing displays, and magazine blurbs all try to get us to read (or simply buy) certain books. Reading the hottest books and discussing them online or in groups has its perks and enjoyments, but what books do  you  want to read?  Japanese author Haruki Murakami once said, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” It’s important to pursue some reading as pure self-indulgence. I’m not talking about reading the self-help genre as a means of self-care. I mean reading anything,  anything , just for the sake that it interests you. All genres are welcome and none are trash. Forget the phrase “guilty pleasure” when it comes to reading — if you enjoy it, enjoy it guilt-free. A book doesn’t have to be high-brow literature or ripe for discussion to have value.  Reading time may be the only alone...

  My parents built their house in June of 1987. I was born that August. We lived there together for the next twenty-six years. I moved out nine years ago when I married, but only four blocks away in the same small town that my father, my husband, and I grew up in. I still visited often, especially when I had my own kids. The house is on a dead-end street, with few neighbors, a lot of space, and deep woods surrounding. It’s a little piece of paradise amid a quaint town you could pass in a blink. It’s a legacy, too, built on property my Opa bought when they immigrated from Germany after World War II. And now it’s been confined to our memories. I get why my parents wanted to sell. It’s a pretty big house and they are empty-nesters. The house and property were a lot to take care of. Not to mention all the stuff that space had allowed them to accumulate. They were tired of the grind, of taking caring of things they didn’t need, of falling into old habits. They want to travel, to simplif...