What Once Carried Us

I've been stuck. Stuck with reading. Stuck with writing.

Lately, I have very little desire, patience, or drive for either. And that feels strange because reading has always been one of the constants in my life.

For the past several years, I've kept track of the books I read. I usually read before falling asleep. I made Mark stop watching TV in bed, thinking it would help me sleep, and now it's simply part of our routine. We enjoy the quiet. Most years I finish around fifty books. In 2023, I read even more—Young Adult novels have a way of speeding things up.

I also save quotations that resonate with me. Looking back, they tell their own story. In 2022, many centered on love, grief, and holding on. Over time, as I learned to live with my grief, the quotes became steadier—still rooted in love and connection, but lighter. They remind me what matters most.

This year, though, I haven't found my groove.

I tried switching back to physical books, thinking I might remember more. I do miss them. But in bed, my Nook is easier. No turning pages, no shifting around to get comfortable. It feels a little sad to admit, but it's true.

So I did what you do when you feel stuck: I went back to something familiar.

Harry Potter.

I reread Books I and II in about a week. Now I'm waiting for Book III from the library. Of course, I could just grab the copy from our bookshelf, but then there's the whole adjusting-in-bed thing. Ugh.

When I was teaching first grade in New York, one of my fellow teachers was obsessed with Harry Potter. She couldn't wait for each new book to come out. One morning she walked all the way into her classroom with her nose buried in the pages. Don't you love that feeling?

I first read the series when my kids were little, and I couldn't put them down. Everyone else seemed to be reading them too. When I reached Book IV, I felt a bit disappointed—it seemed slower than the first three. I mentioned this to my daughters' swim instructor, because that's where I did a lot of my reading. He told me to skip the Quidditch match, since it didn't add much to the plot. He was right. Once I did that, I finished IV quickly, and then V, VI, and VII followed—not lightning fast, of course, because I still had young children and a husband who needed attention.

When my daughter was in second grade, she wanted to start reading Harry Potter herself. She was at the right reading level but worried the books would be too scary. The movies were already out, and she had seen dark, dramatic clips.

In our house, the rule was simple: you had to read the book before watching the movie.

I offered to read the series aloud to her so I could be there if anything felt overwhelming. We started with Book I and kept going. We read I, II, III, IV, and V together. IV is long. V is even longer, nearly 800 pages. Reading silently is one thing; reading aloud is another thing entirely.

After we finished V, my daughter was ready to continue on her own. She flew through VI and VII in about a week.

I read I, II, and III aloud to my son. He was ready to read independently a little earlier, and he finished the series quickly too. And, another motivator for him was that I would not allow Harry Potter LEGOs unless he finished reading the books.

Only then were they allowed to watch the movies, and I believe he did get “Hogwarts” LEGO for Christmas that year.

They tell me the films did a good job staying true to the books.

I wouldn't know.

I've never watched any of them in their entirety.

Instead, here I am, years later, rereading Harry Potter on my Nook.

It isn't nostalgia that brought me back to these books. It's comfort. Familiar stories when new ones feel hard to enter. Maybe this is how we find our way back when we feel stuck—by returning to what once carried us.

And maybe that's enough.