Continuity

On Being a Reader

For several weeks, I’ve written about identities that I’m losing, about figuring out who I am now without those identities. But today, I’d like to write about an identity that I’ve had for a long time, an identity that I don’t intend to let go of anytime soon. In fact, this might be my longest-held identity, other than those I was born with. Since before I even started school, I have been a reader.

Much of the credit goes to my mom. She instilled a love of reading in my brother Frank and me from the time we were little. I’ve already told the story of her turning the Five Dolls books into plays. She also memorized The Cat in the Hat so that she could “read” it to Frank while giving me a bath when I was a baby. She was generous when Scholastic book orders came home in our backpacks and never complained about reading a well-loved book again.

Mom was also always up for a trip to the library. I still remember one especially eventful trip in summer 1977. Mom loaded my older brother and me into our rusty car for our weekly trip to town. We sat three across the bench front seat and sang at the top of our lungs as the dust from the gravel road blew in the open windows. We picked up my grandma from her small yellow house on 14^th Street, within walking distance of the library if the books she chose weren’t too heavy, and found a parking spot on 3^rd Street as close to the brick Carnegie library building as we could.

That day, like so many others, I bolted from the car and tore up the sidewalk, tripping on the same patch of broken concrete that had been my downfall many times before. My mom stocked Bactine in her bottomless bag, the spray still stinging as she applied a Bandaid that had seen better days. But even a skinned knee couldn’t slow me down that day.

Up to that point, I had been too young for my own library card, so instead of selecting the full limit of seven books that my older brother enjoyed, I was forced to narrow the possibilities to the two or three that my mom would check out for me. These would be my companions for the next week. Did I want to reunite with old favorites – Frances or the Bobbsey Twins – or discover new possibilities?

But that day, I was five years old. I would be starting kindergarten in just a couple of weeks, and it was time for me to get my very own library card. The orange card had my name and address typed at the top and informed everyone that Amy Elizabeth Cash is entitled to draw books from Louisiana Public Library and is responsible for all books taken on this card. When I filled the card, I was promptly given another. My first two library cards were in a box of memorabilia that I found after Mom died.

From that day forward, I have always had a library card. As we’ve moved from place to place, there have been times when I got a new library card before getting a washer and dryer. When we visit a new city, I love to find a local bookstore. The fact that Prairie Lights, an independent bookstore that is a fixture in Iowa City, is just a few blocks from my office, is both delightful and dangerous.

It is worth asking why this identity has stuck, why I never tire of reading books, talking about books, revisiting old favorites, and finding new ones. In their research on identity motives, Professors Blake Ashforth and Beth Schinoff provide several reasons people choose and keep certain identities.

First, we choose valued identities, identities that are important and that others hold in esteem. One of my top values is curiosity. I love learning new things, going new places, understanding others’ lives. Reading helps me live out that value. We also are motivated to maintain self-consistency. Even as everything else is changing, I can trace my love of reading back to my childhood. The familiarity of sinking into a book settles my nerves and brings the same joy that I felt when those Scholastic book orders were delivered.

But maybe most important is that being a reader makes me feel connected to Mom. Throughout my adult life, Mom and I shared books, passing large canvas totes back and forth every time we saw each other. I have many of her books on my shelves now, including the one that she was reading when she died, her bookmark still in its place. I miss her most when a new book comes out from an author she loved. And some of my favorite memories involve our visits to the Iowa City Book Festival.

Who am I now? Even as so much is changing, the answer is, in part, the same as it has always been. I am a reader, just like Mom was.

What have you always loved to do? Is this an identity that might provide some continuity, even as you are navigating transitions?