There is a popular phrase that is showing up on t-shirts and memes these days.  “I like __ and maybe 3 people.”  The blank is filled with your favorite craft, hobby, food, or whatever, of choice.  I am not a fan of large crowds of people.  Three people is enough for me at any given time.  That said, I don’t have a general dislike of the human race…most days.

Where I do have issues with people is when they say stupid shit and its hard to tell whether they seriously believe  they are being helpful or are intentionally being jerks.  That probably sounds like a harsh statement.  Let me explain.

I love to read.  Because I am legally blind, I have to hold most regular print books super close to my face when I read.  I know that this looks weird to the general population.  I get that.  But to look at me ands say, “You should get some glasses.”   If only it were that simple!  Do people honestly think that I’m just too lazy or too dumb to realize that glasses help with vision?  What they don’t get is that glasses can’t help all vision issues.  Those associated with albinism fall into this realm.  

Because I don’t want to deal with the ignorance and/or idiocy of people, I normally don’t read a print book in public.  I read on my iPad where I can make the font as big as I need it to be and nobody else can see whether it is 12 point or 20 point type.  Oh how I wish the iPad had been around when I was in graduate school.  It is definitely a game changer!  But I digress…

Most of the time I don’t care what people think or even what they say to me.  I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to ignore people who make fun of the way I read or my white hair or my pale skin.  I’m not sure why I’ve let comments keep me from grabbing my book and heading to the local coffee shop to spend an afternoon reading and drinking coffee.  Maybe it is because being interrupted with the glasses comments and feeling like peoples’ stares are boring holes in my head ruins the reading.  It is just easier not to put myself in such a situation.

I love to read when I am traveling.  It passes the time in airports and on planes.  Most of the time I am secretly happy when a flight is delayed because it means I’ll have some extra time to read…on my iPad.  I am traveling tomorrow.  I am not currently reading anything, so while packing I started contemplating what I want to read on my upcoming trip.  My 60 By Sixty list includes rereading Walden.  Thoreau is my hero, the subject of all of those essay questions in school where you are asked to write about the one person, real or fictional, that you would most like to meet.  I first read Walden as a junior in high school.  Even though much of Thoreau’s wisdom was lost on my teenaged soul, it touched me in some way, a way that has led me to revisit Walden every ten years or so.  And every time I read it it is fresh and more profound than the last.

I’m running out of time before my birthday to get it read so I decided that Walden would be this week’s travel read.  The problem is that I don’t want to read it on my iPad.  I want to be able to to write in the book, to talk back to Thoreau as I read.  But there is that dislike of reading in public thing…To overcome this, I did something I never do.  I ordered a large print copy of Walden to take on my trip.  Large print books are often too unwieldy to carry around.  Thankfully, this one is not.  It’s 16 point type make it about the size of a trade paperback, perfectly manageable to carry and read onboard the plane.

I’m looking forward to spending time again with my hero.  What will he have to say to me right now?  It has been twelve years since Thoreau and I last Walden Pond together.  Much has changed in my life since then.  Since I’m reading from this new copy of the book, I won’t be distracted by my old notes.  Perhaps when I get home from my trip, I’ll compare now and then.  And, maybe I won’t.  Knowing what I was thinking in 2008 is most likely totally irrelevant to anything I should be thinking today.

I’m sure I’ll write a post later this month about my trip with Mr. Thoreau.  Stay tuned…