I recently read an Atlantic article by Julie Beck called "Life's Stories" wherein the writer claims that "Any creation of a narrative is a bit of a lie." We all need these creative lies to make sense of the world, to find meaning, and sometimes to just make it through the day. I have been a voracious reader since childhood, and so when asked to share one story that most impacted my life, looking back at my 51 years, I am unable to pinpoint just one. When I reflect, the multitudes of narratives I've read throughout my life bubble forth much like a kaleidscope reflecting constantly changing patterns from the small bits of each story that I can remember; and there's the rub: My lack of long-term memory embarrasses me. Even with books that I've read more than once, sometimes I can't even remember the main plot! That being said, if forced to choose, I would pick Proust's In Search of Lost Time as probably having the longest-lasting impact on me overall. Besides details such as the infamous Madeleine scene and the young Marcel longing for his mother in the darkness of his room, more importantly, I remember the impact of Proust's long-winded sentences and paragraphs leading to a great reward: such beautiful language! Some insight! Now that it has been over a decade since I read Proust, I am still a lot like the person I was when I read In Search--melancholy and ruminative much like the fictional and factual Marcel. But I've come along ways in recognizing that it is getting lost in rumination that causes the most suffering: longing for what was rather than savoring the present. I still have a ways to go, but mindful meditation practice along with solid experience with life struggles, has helped me to grow and mature and to finally achieve something like happiness.

Loretta, a primary character in Joyce Carol Oat’s novel them, grew up in the Detroit slums, watched the boy she loved die in her bed at age 16, married a police officer out of necessity, bore two children and struggled to make her hardscrabble life as dreamy as possible. My life is nothing like Loretta’s. I will never face her circumstances. Still, I found myself in her, became Loretta for a brief time, wrapped up in her life rather than my own. Books take me out of myself and help me connect to other people, be they well-drawn characters or flesh and blood human beings.

I discovered them in a used bookstore in my early 20s after graduating college, and quickly devoured everything I could find by Oates. Her characters leave me charged with empathy and wrestling with my own interiority. I believe that all humanity is connected. Any of us can bring about great good or great evil that effects the lives of others. Reading helped me develop that world view. Reading expands empathy, understanding and love for others.

I have never hidden from Nazis in an attic, but feel a part of Anne Frank’s fear. I will never birth a stillborn child and feed my breast milk to a starving old man as young Rose of Sharon did in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. The gift of breast milk brought tears to my eyes and deep love for Rose of Sharon and her mother. Part of me will forever be on that rickety journey with the Joad family to a promised land that did not exist.

Because of reading, I have a better capacity to understand someone like Celie in The Color Purple. I can glimpse into the emotional world of Toni Morrison’s Sethe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne. Reading has strengthened my capacity for empathy, opened my eyes to the troubles and viewpoints of others, the reasons for certain actions. Because of great writers and the characters they create, I am less self-centered. I am more understanding and open minded. So I keep reading. There is more room to grow, more characters to help me better connect with others, more chances to find versions of myself, again and again, in the pages of a well written novel.