I sit on my bean bag, not daring to move, alert both to what I hold in my hands and what might be coming down the hall. Do I hear the soft sound of carpet compressing beneath bare feet? Is there time to hide what I’m reading? What will happen if she comes through the door?
What I should be reading is the Bible, or my Sabbath School lesson, or some Ellen G. White book. What I am reading is innocuous: Little Women, perhaps, or a library book from my public high school. Nothing that she would know about, but all of it more interesting than what I was supposed to be reading. More to the point, it was reading that I chose, reading that was beyond her narrow world.
She never caught me, not any time that I remember, and soon I would be out the door, beyond her physical reach.
---
More Weekly Anamnesis here.
Posted by on Wednesday, June 21, 2006 at 3:32 AM
Writing •
(1) Add your comment •
Permalink
Very interesting. I’ve engaged in “illegal reading” too. Innocuous, but at the wrong time. A favourite punishment of my father’s was to ground me from reading.
Next entry: Age
Previous entry: The Lindt affair