I am wild about wild.

A week ago I pulled up my sister’s on-line magazine, Vela, and read a post where each of the writers wrote about their favorite summer reads. One writer talked about wild by Cheryl Strayer. I had heard about the book on NPR a while back and seen it sitting on the shelf each time I walked through Barnes and Noble to get my morning coffee. I figured with the combination of all of those signs from the universe, I should give it a try.

I am not a reader of long books. I typically go straight to the articles in the Atlantic or New Yorker and that suits me fine. But reading the writers’ entries on Vela made me want to give reading novels or memoirs another try since I hadn’t read one in a year (Left Neglected being the last).

I purchased wild a week ago and I completed it last night. I felt conflicted as I sat next to Ri in her bed. She had asked me to lay next to her until she fell asleep. She also asked me to read to her from my book. She hung in for four pages but then curled beside me and passed out. I didn’t want the book to end but I also wanted to find out how it ended. I found myself reading slowly for a paragraph and then speeding up for two. An hour later, the book was finished, and I cried. I cried over a combination of things: the beauty of mothers and daughters; the exhilaration at reading a novel again; the recognition of finding oneself; the confirmation of the release and freedom from just letting it all go.

I am now like a voracious animal in the wild. I want to scour the bookstore for my next memoir or novel and dig into it. I am thinking of Out of Africa since that was one of my sister’s favorite books. I’m just thinking that might be like going from 0 to 120 mph and overwhelm me! Maybe Molly Ringwald’s new book instead….