I wish I had something more exciting to tell you about, but after my lunch-debate last week, I was overcome with the need to read Harry Potter. To make matters worse, I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with my friend, Megan, and suddenly, the urge was irresistible. So,I have spent almost every waking hour since my last post devouring Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. (I've read the first 3 so many times, it seemed pointless to start from the beginning.) I holed myself up in my most recent house-sitting job with frozen dinners, lunchables, and mini-bottles of wine. I haven't shared the company of a real human being since Friday lunch, and I have been perfectly content.
Now that I've finished the last page and wiped away the tears, I realize now why my mother hated me so much when I was reading Harry. I've always been a reader, but for me, reading Harry has always been a binge. Every time a new book was about to come out, I would set down to read all the preceding books, basically in one sitting. This meant, that every year or so, I would become completely useless for a week. If forced, I think I would empty the dishwasher one-handed while continuing to read Harry out of my other hand. When Deathly Hallows came out, I read it in its entirety on my 18-hour plan ride from South Africa on my way to college. The outside world has just never seemed to matter when it comes to reading Harry.
I know a lot of people, including a LOT of fellow English majors, will disagree with me, but it seems difficult to deny that there is something really magical about the books. In elementary school, there were a handful of other kids who liked to read as much as I did. Everybody else, just seemed to read enough to meet their quota of Accelerated Reader points. But when Harry Potter was released, I suddenly could talk about books with almost every kid in my class. Suddenly, they were not only reading, but they were reading the same books I was. A professor of mine once called Harry the savior or superhero of my generation, and I think it might be true. My late grandfather suffered a stroke 5 or 6 years ago. Once an avid reader, he suddenly was incapable of doing so anymore. Yet, somehow, Harry Potter was the only thing he could manage to focus on long enough to read. If that's not magic, I don't know what is.
So, yeah, I'm a Harry fan, big deal. I overindulge. I cry and laugh and sometimes even call him an idiot. And it's going to take a lot of will-power to read the other 5 (more on my reading level) books I'm in the middle of, rather than start Order of the Phoenix. Anyway, the point of this post is - I think somewhere in the middle of my mini-binge, I rediscovered a little piece of myself. Reminiscing about the Nate years and stuff is all fine and good, but I think I found some sort of essence of Natalie hidden in the pages of Harry. I remember I read Goblet of Fire for the first time in the summer before 6th grade. And that girl, well, she was shy, quiet, and content to be by herself, happy even, with the lack of any entertainment other than a good book. I've strayed a bit from that Natalie - in fact, it has been pointed out that I'm definitely not an introvert anymore. And while I'm very happy to not be quite as shy, it was kind of fun to be 12 again (but with wine!) for a weekend.
Total agreement.
ReplyDeleteI really think if we had met when we were 11 we would have been just as good of friends as we are now. (Well, that is unless my introvertedness would have prevented me from gaining your friendship, which is likely :P)
But it seems like we have been the same kind of person, gone through the same transformations at the same times in our lives and everything.
And that's why we're BFFLs! :)