Audiobooks = Transformation???

Not talking about self-help books...not that there's anything wrong with that!

They say what goes around comes around and it sure does. The world goes around, a week goes by, Tuesday comes around, and here I am…again.

Whoosh. And good morning.

Time is flying by faster than the speed of a hovering hummingbird’s frantically fluttering feather-covered wings beating to keep it aloft.

So the general theme for Tuesday is transformation, and that’s where the audiobook fits in.

But first a bit of background, a bit of context:

I like books, physical books, books with covers that tell a story and printed pages that fill in the details. I also like my Kindle, in the certain conditions and circumstances when the sheer convenience it delivers outweighs the immersive experience of turning pages and re-reading the thank you card from three Christmases ago that my nieces sent me that I’m now using as a bookmark…and in some cases seeing pictures of the characters that the non-fiction story is bringing to life, and…you get the picture. The Kindle is “fine” but for me it’s not the same thing as reading-a-book reading.

So…audiobooks…not….a…fan. Admittedly for no real reason. Opposed in theory.

I’ve been anti-audiobook for as long as they’ve been around, for what I’d claim were “a million reasons” yet somehow I was unable to articulate a single valid one (my most-frequent was “I have a short commute?” something I’d upspeak weakly, accompanied by an even less-convincing shrug). I’d never even attempted to listen to one. I think the real reason was simply “no interest,” a loathing that was rooted in absolutely nothing.

But now, with all the walking, I was asked, why not actually try one?

I was easily able to offer few reasons/excuses (again, hardly valid ones), like “I can’t pay that close attention while I’m walking.” Or, “I have to pay so much attention that I walk too slow.” I’d say these things as if I were attempting to listen to a complex medical textbook or if somehow listening to an audiobook while I walked was that much harder than, say, walking and chewing gum.

So I decided to do an experiment. I’d go back to playing podcasts while I walked and just plain listen to them…I wouldn’t put pressure on myself to remember every detail of what I heard or to learn something new, but rather I’d endeavor to listen breezily and enjoy them…and if I learned something from them more the better. But no hitting rewind and stopping to take notes. Just breezy enjoyment.

“You can do this,” I told myself.

And what do you know, I could! I was listening to podcasts for pleasure and maybe getting some byproduct edification but I was doing it…and in that seemingly simple action, I lifted the weight of a thousand notebooks off of my shoulders, prompting me to take the next step and try an audiobook. Since a title had already been recommended with the initial suggestion that I give it a try, I was spared the agony of choice and put it on hold at the library figuring “this is perfect…I’ll do it, but I don’t have to do it right now.” Of course the the next day I got my alert that the title was available for me to check out and the next thing I knew I was downloading the Libby app and learning how to listen to an audiobook. 🤦🏼‍♀️

So that first book was called Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, a hip and trendy pick of Reese’s Book Club, a layered story that touches on race and class in modern America. It was a fun listen, a decent story, touched on problematic events and interactions in an everyday way, etc. But…the way the narrator voiced one of the characters…like I imagine the sound of broken glass on a chalkboard, which is a sound worse than nails on one. Grating. Annoying. Unpleasant. Even so, in total, the audiobook experience was pleasant. It actually made me feel like I was making my walks more useful, though admittedly I tend to get distracted and daydream a bit when I’m walking. Or as I call it, “multithinking.” Either way I have to occasionally shake myself back into focus and hit the “back 15 seconds” icon. Not a big deal, not a problem. The story itself entertained me (though some plot points were unsatisfying) and also provided me with an interesting frame of reference for so much of what I’m learning lately about systemic racism and privilege. It provided context that allowed me to see nuance and dimension that doesn’t always come out in nonfiction.

I checked in with my recommending friend when the experiment concluded. “Did you like it?” she asked, referencing the experience itself and not the story’s plot lines. “I did…yeah…but I don’t feel like I read the book…it feels…different.” And then my friend delivered up a timely and much-needed does of…

She wisely advised me to consider a blind person listening out of necessity vs “reading” as I define it. They would consider their experience one of “reading” the book (as would I!) though they didn’t literally read it. With that perspective came a new kind of permission I quickly granted to myself (You are reading! It’s ok!), and I promptly put another book on hold…only to have it also become available virtually immediately…no excuses not to keep going. And so I moved into another whole new world, one of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and the Chilean coup of the early 1970s and then following the characters and their stories into the 1990s. A sweeping, epic tale of war and politics and exile and love and family and…well, all kinds of stuff. No spoilers here! I’m 88% of the way through Isabel Allende’s A Long Petal of the Sea and one thing I will say is I’ve definitely found a time and a place for the audiobook in my life. It’s not the same experience as reading for me, but I do see it as an alternative way of consuming a story that is equivalent in terms of what I get out of the time invested. In this case the narrator makes the story for me, he does an amazing job, allowing me to differentiate easily between characters without things being overplayed or jarring. And the story is excellent, detailed historical fiction of things about which I previously knew nothing.

Some of the details of A Long Petal of the Sea did give me pause, providing sentences and experiences that allowed me to reflect in a broader way…and I always appreciate that. Without spoiling the plot, a few are of note (definitely a theme here, consciously unintentional, subconsciously deliberate) are:

• “The burning nostalgia…gradually merged into that gray area of memory where what we have lived fades away.” As I get older and think of my life hundreds of thousands (millions?) of little building blocks (that could have been configured into how many formations and permutations of the thing that is my life) this line brought to mind many of the things I experienced that once felt and seemed so big, things that now seem so small, that I can barely recall and certainly not accurately…and reminded me how our life outlives some of our experiences, and what a blessing that can be. Every little detail shapes us and defines us, but they don’t have to retain a starring technicolor role in life’s current act. Consider a rainbow. The colors of a rainbow allow for the creation of all other colors (I think, but I was an English major) yet when you look at the rainbow itself you see only seven colors, and you don’t see blacks and grays…but they’re there. (I think. Just go with me here.) In that way, life is a lot like a rainbow…some of it is represented by a gray that is there but not visible…yet still it exists, still it has been lived. I recently read something somewhere else that noted that our own memory can be our worst enemy. Know when to let go. Know when to go gray.

• “You can’t bring back the past.” This raised the question for me of whether one would ever want to. I know I wouldn’t want to bring back a single piece of the past if it meant that I would be anywhere different than I am right now. To quote Jesus Jones, “right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be.” The only moment that matters is this one—the past is set in stone and the future is a mystery. Time spent on either the past or the future is time poorly wasted. You’d be better off making a TikTok. Then at least you have the chance of going viral and getting your 15 minutes of fame.

• “If one lives long enough, circles close.” I know that the circle of life is a real thing, a wheel of fortune, a leap of faith, a band of hope (per Elton John and The Lion King soundtrack), but I’m not a particularly big fan of it. The song is good, the movie is great, the real thing can be problematic…but anyway for me this line is about the many circles that make up our lives, the many different-sized links on the chain of our unique existences and experiences. “Long enough” is a relative expression…long enough for the circles to close could mean a minute or a week or a decade or a lifetime, but no matter…circles eventually close. And when they do, rather than look at that closure as something that excludes us, we’re wise to look at it as a cementing of experience, a soldering of a link in the chain, strengthening all that we are, all who we are.

Thanks for being here, for being a bright and visible color in my rainbow, for being a a strong link in my chain, and for being a part of the only moment that matters—this one. Have a great week!