If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?
Last week I finished reading a book by Kurt Vonnegut. It was a book in the sense that it had a cover with pages bound in the middle, but it didn’t have the continuity of one story. Really, it is a collection of commencement speeches Vonnegut delivered over four different decades. It isn’t a complete collection; just a highlight reel depicting why he is arguably one of the most influential authors of his generation.
I first read Vonnegut in high school, probably as an assignment for one of my English classes. I don’t remember which of his books was assigned reading. Although, it’s always Cat’s Cradle that pops into my mind. But it wasn’t our required reading that had me mesmerized. It was Breakfast of Champions.
It’s been about 10 years since I last read Breakfast of Champions, but it is on my list of books to read again soon. I’m not sure that I’ll love it as much as I used to, so maybe it will go in the donate pile after that. Or maybe it will return to my bookshelf. That’s what happens when we grow up. Some things continue to impress us, and others don’t. And I’m not sure where one of my old favorite books will land.
Anyway though, that isn’t my point. Or maybe it is, at least a little bit.
Over this past year, I’ve read several books that I’ve been hanging onto for a long time. I’ve been finally reading the rest of the books I bought or borrowed during the last dozen or so years. They have all been books I intended to read, but I just hadn’t gotten around to them yet. There was always a newer book [or five] cutting them in line.
A few of these books have been the great reads I’d imagined them to be. For those books, the hours spent living inside their story have flown by. Some of the other books have been neutral, filled with nothing particularly good, bad or memorable for me in their pages. And the rest of them have made me wonder why I’ve been holding onto them for so long.
I keep reading anyway. It’s not something I do with every book, but it’s always something I do with one of these perpetually patient ones. When the sentences are moving by slowly, my mind wanders a bit. I always find myself wondering if the story on the pages would have been more compelling if I had read it right away. I can’t help but be curious if the me buying the book ten years ago would have been more impressed.
Sometimes I know that would be true. Because I’ve reread books pulled from my shelf only to later wonder why I thought it was one to hold onto. In those moments, I’m more confident than in any other moments that I’ve changed over the years. It’s refreshing to know that I’ve grown up [or at least different] as the years have gone by. A lot of change happens slow enough that you don’t catch it at the time.
Even when the book isn’t compelling for me these days, I always enjoy trying to remember when I bought it. Usually I can pinpoint it to a particular year. And then a different adventure begins. The one where I remember what was going on in my life at that point in time. We are drawn to things that mean something to us in a particular moment, and out of context, some of those things no longer mean anything at all.
A lot of these books I’m finally getting around to reading still have their Border’s price tag on their backs. [I have a habit of never peeling the price sticker from a book until I’ve finished it.] Even if their content no longer resinates with something inside me, it’s no mystery to me why I bought them. For a few years, I bought books recklessly. Books that I thought my sister would have wanted to read, so I wanted to read them for her. I spent a lot of time walking through Borders in those days because it was one of the only places I could go where it felt like she was still alive. It’s for both of those girls that I’ll happily finish a book I’d otherwise put down.
The Vonnegut book I recently finished isn’t one of the books I bought at Border’s. [When I was desperately trying to survive life with a shattered heart.] It was a gift from a dear friend, bought a few years ago when her life was exactly how she never imagined it would be. But we had just gotten back from turning all those unexpected things into an adventure. And the book was a thank you gift, for always being there since we were 10 years old.
I’ll admit, I don’t like Vonnegut as much as I used to. I am no longer a high school girl trying to figure out who she is. A girl who thinks being more high-brow intellectual than is natural to her is at least a little important for the future she imagines. These days I no longer try to pretend that I understand things I don’t. And sometimes the things I thought I knew in high school still fly way over my head.
But this Vonnegut book, this collection of speeches, brings me back to one important question we should all ask more often. A question that begs us to pause and appreciate the moment we are living in for the simple beauty of right now. His Uncle Alex would often interrupt the flow of conversation during the simplest of moments to ask, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
A simple question. One that asks us to look around and notice the pleasant around us. A question meant to evoke the simplest and most wonderful of answers. If this isn’t nice, then I don’t know what is.
Even after a year when everything slowed down, we’re all constantly moving quickly. Maybe too quickly for us to notice all the lovely around us. Maybe today, now that you’ve taken a few minutes to read something without rushing to something else, is the perfect time to ask yourself, if this isn’t nice, what is?
