Don't walk in someone else's shoes, try turning the page of their favorite book

You say 'Walk in someone else's shoes" I say check out someone else's book 

Imagine yourself as a twenty through forty something adult. You are having building friendships with other adult and co workers and are trying to maintain conversations frequently. You can begin with safe dialogues like the weather and where you grew up and went to school etc. You can take the introverted route and scout someone's Facebook/Insta/Twitter/or Snapchat profiles and pages. What was once jokingly referred to as 'stalking' someone's profile has now become a socially acceptable,  secret backdoor way to know and love and judge someone. You are investigating a person on your own time and in your own space. What I have found myself doing when in situations with the Kinder mom's is even asking them waht they are binge watching right now. Nothing is strikingly wrong with these practice, but I feel that as our relationships with family and friends grow stronger that there is a way to do better.

What is the point of this rant you ask? Since this blog is my love letter to books, let me share my own idea of how to take a deeper interest into our friends and family:

Read their favorite book.

I have to stop asking people what show to watch on the streaming services. I have less and less interest in TV and as I have mentioend before have no trust in the streaming platforms. So as I ball my hands into fists when I try to ask others about shows I am now asking about a favorite all time book. Reading a person's favorite book to me is more intimate than knowing their favorite music, movie, or show.

Let me share with you my experience. I was so afraid that I would never get to do this, but I finally carved some time to read my mother in law's favorite book: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.  This book is pretty short a mere 212 pages. There is very little excuse for me to not make the time. I read the book in about a week to a week in a half. This is an embarrassingly slow read for me, but I will spare all the excuses. Anyway, the resutls are that I am go glad I did read it. Being removed from my mother in law by at least 5 states I wanted to show an act of love and admiration towards her. Now you can call someone or text someone, but reading their favorite book is a neat experience. My mother in law was a grade school teacher in Arizona for many year and she used to read this book to her class. I learned that she has read the book at least 20 times and has cried probably at least 20 times reading it. The setting of the book is in Oklahoma (Which is where she lived early on in her life and currently lives now) and is just such an amazing telling of a boy, his faith, and two incredible dogs. It is an emotional read but one definetely worth reading. When I texted her to tell her I read reading it her response to me was "You will love it."She was correct.

What I love is that this is not the type of book that I expect to be her favorite. It is about a young boy and his dogs. Why would this be her favorite? Needless to say it doesnt matter. I began reading this book with this idealistic question but soon abdandoned this method of thinking. Reading a book is embarking on a journey. It can conceptualize a humorous exploit,  a page turning mind game, or even an emotional roller coaster. When I was reading my mother in law's favorite book I feel like she was sending me on this journey. She standing at the shore waving me off with well wishes.  In similar fashion, she was also there for me when I completed the book. She was waiting for me ready to eargerly discuss my reaction and thoughts.   A pleaseant surprise was she knew a lot of background on the author and how he had thrown his first version of the book into the fire because no one woudl publish it.

In summary, my plea as always is to keep reading. This post would have been better suited prior to Mother's Day (alas I continue to be a day late and a doller short), but hey let's aim for Father's Day.  I challenge you to ask someone what their favorite book is (no judgement) and to read it.  What might be even better is to find out what their favorite book is, read it, and then reveal this to them afterwards.  Find a dad, any dad and start with them. In my experience, I feel like I have a new connection with my mother in law now that I know the magic of her favorite book. She really means a lot to me and I want to have conversations with individuals about abstract things minus the screens. Thank you to my lovely sister Liz for helping me get back into the game here. Let's be readers and be thirty, wordy, and reading instead of quiet, distracted, and bingewatching.