Books

It goes without saying that I love books. Only sometimes I don't, actually. Sometimes I don't want to read. I don't want to be in the middle of a novel. I want to hide my bedside table's stack of unread books beneath the bed. When Amelia was born, however, I decided I wanted to read Homer. The Odyssey. We all carry around the sense that we didn't read enough in high school, or college, that we're missing some key knowledge of literature that is certainly holding us back from the full extent of life's pleasures. Looking forward to hours nursing in the rocking chair, I decided I would tackle the Odyssey, especially since the gorgeous cover of the Robert Fagles translation had been peeking from my unread pile for several years.

Disclaimer: I really am not one of those people who think you should be reading classical literature to your babies to make them smarter. Really. I just had a sense that this was the book to read while nursing. I thought that it needed to be read out loud, to make the prose-poetry hum, and what better time and place to do that than with the baby. To pass the time. When I could do nothing else. This wasn't about the baby, but about me. I've always thought that books for moms to read while nursing make the best shower and baby presents.

So I began, out loud. I soon switched to reading to myself, regular grown-up fashion. Where at first silent reading would make my eyes glaze over, a few weeks after I entered the book's fantastical god-and-goddess driven world, I could more easily read silently, I could hear the poetry in my head. My only concern was that my baby's ten-minute power-nursing meant I didn't have nearly the time I wished for to read.

Nine months later, I'm not yet done. I have reached the chapter where finally, Odysseus returns to Ithaca, and so too does his son, Telemachus, aided by the goddess Pallas Athena. They are about to take the palace back from the evil, consuming men who woo Penelope's hand. I can't wait to see how they do it.

I am as entranced by Homer's Odyssey as my daughter Samira was when she read Harry Potter.