From my downward dog yoga position I can see into the bedroom behind me. Sitting at the edge of the bed, he had started getting dressed, but stopped to read a few more pages in his book. It made me smile. He had put it down a few minutes before, but it drew him back in. I have always trusted people who live there – in the word. People who love to read.

The vulnerability of the author. The empathy of the reader. The ability to imagine. Become. Understand. Live. I know that people say it all the time, but reading! – please read. Teach your children to read. I don’t mean just knowing how to recognize the words, but teach them how to really read – how to crawl between the letters and become.

All the questions. All the answers, they’re all there, written, or waiting to be written. Dreams. Hopes. Adventures. All there. Distractions. Me too. Survivals. Maps. Doors. All there, tangled in each letter.

From the age of 6, in a hospital in St. Cloud, reading showed me how to survive, and then put a pencil in my hand and taught me how to thrive. I won’t tell you what to read. It can be anything. But read. Aloud. Silent. Often. Again. Crawl through. Become.