Yesterday I read John Muir’s The Story of My Boyhood and Youth.

Chapter, scroll, chapter, scroll, chapter, scroll. Typically, we try to implement no scroll Sundays, but it felt like the world was moving too fast for us to be logged off.

I’ve been disciplined about where I’m reading about COVID-19. (Pretty much only WHO.) But that didn’t stop me from plowing through social media as soon as my mind wandered from the page, and watching the way friends and businesses and community members are responding to the pandemic. 

Maybe the first time, I set down a book and felt more anxious than when I began reading.

I felt about the same when I closed my laptop tonight. We laced up our sneakers anyways. A run was out of the question, so we went for a walk instead. Stiff wind on the boardwalk and cold, about 45 degrees. For more than a mile we had the place to ourselves. Maybe the social distancing is starting to take hold, I hoped.

I picked up a compendium of all eight of Muir’s wilderness discovery books at a used book store in LA in the fall. A hugely impractical purchase, the book is more than a thousand pages in length and weighs about seven pounds. Still, I couldn’t resist. After meetings wrapped in LA I was off to the big trees and needed this old book.

Over dinner, I was struck by how strange it is -- this moment in time. Muir used to try to sneak in five minutes of reading each night before being told to go to bed. He borrowed books from neighbors who were mostly many miles away. For the first time in my lifetime, we’re confined to our little homestead and just right over there I have eight books in one. And a whole day in which to take them in. Could be quite pleasant, if I’d stop scrolling.

(Photo by Vladimir Kudinov on Unsplash)