I’ve been having an interesting e-mail exchange with a reader named Linda R. about how we decide on when to give up on a book we’re reading.

I remember one novel that stayed on my night table for months. Again and again I would pick it up to give it one more try although I found the plot tedious and the prose uninspired. Finally I donated the book to a library book sale.

Quite some time later, during a book discussion at a dinner party, I mentioned my disappointment over this popular book (it was a best-seller, though I should know by now that this often is a guarantee of nothing more than a strong marketing machine at work). A friend, another avid reader, asked how far along I was. “About page fifty,” I said. “Oh,” she said. “The beginning is really, really slow, but it‘s worth it.” Another friend chimed in. “You have to get to page 100,” she said. “Then you won’t be able to put it down.”

This was not the first time I’ve heard that comment about a book. I call it the just-stick-with-it advice. But why didn’t the author begin at page 100? Or why hadn’t an editor recommended tightening the beginning? Why must I have to slog through the first third of a book before becoming engaged?

Linda R. said she was willing to give a book an honest go but there were too many books she wanted to read to spent the time on one that she doesn’t like.

For years I’ve felt a moral obligation to finish any book I began, but no longer. As Linda wrote, life is too short. And there are, indeed, far too many books. When we open to page one, we agree to no contract to read to the final page. The imperative lies with the author who is charged with creating a book that draws the reader in early on, to create an engine of desire that drives the train through the long journey to its destination.

These e-mails with Linda have me thinking about calling it quits in general. Most of us have been raised on the “Never give up,” mantra. The Vince Lombardi school of “Winners never quit and quiters never win,” a philosophy underscored these days as we watch Olympians push beyond imagined barriers and possibilities. They are men and women who serve as object lessons that perseverance - linked with hard work, desires and dreams - does pay off. If we only did what we knew we could do instead of what we imagined might be possible, no barrier would be broken. Of space, or time or mind.

And yet. And yet.

Sometimes the most positive thing we can do is hop off the train. To put down a book that goes no where. To make another choice. To make the hard call to back off from relationships that consistently drain. To step away from friendships that have become abusive. To put down a book that bores.

Sometimes calling it quits is a sign we’ve taken charge of our own time. Our own lives.

Posted by Anne LeClaire at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, the chickens are no longer in that adorable Easter-peeps-fluff stage. Now they are in pre-adolescence, all gawky and full of attitude. They roost on the branches Hillary has threaded through the hen yard wire, chase each other around in what seems like a fowl version of tag, and come running to wrangle over kitchen scraps.

One has chosen me for friendship. Or what passes for it in the poultry world.

A Black Star, she walked up to me the day she arrived, twenty-four hours after being hatched, the only one of twenty-eight not timid or wary. She hasn't stopped coming to me since. When I step into the yard, she rushes over, ignores the melon rind I offer and pushes against my leg. While the rest of the chick-lets mill about and squabble over the peelings, she stands still while I stoke her feathers. She is a handsome creature who, according to the McMurray Hatchery people, will weigh a little over five pounds when full grown. They advertise her as egg-laying machine. They said nothing about any proclivity to bond with an owner. But bond we have, Black Star and I.

Now back in June when they arrived. I swore I was not going to get attached to this batch. In the past, each time I grew fond of a chick - at least fond enough to name her - she was the first to fall prey to a predator. Tina Turner, a Buff Laced Polish with a flowing crown that looked like a rock star's wig, we lost to a fox who managed to get through the wire fence. Lady Day, a Golden Campine as handsome as a partridge, fell victim to a racoon. Ella we lost to a hawk who squeezed through a narrow hole in the wire netting above the yard. Each time I wept. Although I spent most of my childhood on a farm and know the cruelty of nature, I never get used to it.

So when this batch arrived I said, that's it. No more. I'm not setting myself up for loss. And I'm definitely not naming any of them.

And then little Black Star chose me. And as simple as that, I was hooked.

In this complicated world, it is a simple thing to stand in a chicken yard on a summer day and commune with a chicken. And a simple and wondrous thing, too, to open your heart in spite of a history woven with the anguish of loss.

Posted by Anne LeClaire at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)