Many of us today are seeking to find best personal waysto start our unrolling days before outside demands, digital distractions begin overwhelming our daily allotment of waking-time.
“If I were stranded alone on a desert island and could have brought only one thing from the outside, it would be a newspaper to read thoroughly over and over and memorize,” my father’s saying stayed with me from childhood. That was about the same time when in third and fourth grades I was reading Robinson Crusoe and also publishing my first carbon-copied, later mimeographed neighborhood newspapers.
Later as a young Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya, I happened once to find myself stranded all day alone in a strange place awaiting unscheduled transport for an expedition
and decided to put into practice my father’s idea. Having a days-old newspaper in my bag, I spent that day enjoying re-reading and contemplating the news articles instead of agitating over my temporary situation.
Now I admit my own lifetime addiction for finding meditative calm to start my day: holding and reading the morning’s print newspapers. Ideally, after first immersing in some writing, I reward that effort with this favorite activity. A form of meditation? Yes, my special kind.
Even in this summer of global agitation, my preferred morning activity is reading through my three daily print newspapers delivered to my house. Then afterwards, feeling relaxed, even relieved on reviewing the paper panoply of news, I’m ready to roll into the new day, including viewing incessant digital news.
Weird, as it may seem, I know those who know, others loving reading print newspapers, also understand. On discovering another newspaper-reading devotee, we immediately share our own feelings. “Same for me, too, it’s so satisfying!” A usually hyperactive, younger friend exclaimed last week upon my confessing this personal passion, “So tactile!”
Oh, definitely, the touch, holding the paper, opening, turning the pages, sitting over coffee, succumbing to trance-like immersion, savoring pauses for brief cogitation of something read, admiring stories crafted and now arranged enticingly on pages, experiencing excitement in learning about some unknown idea or trend or person, finding a gripping story, not what we were specifically looking for, instead something new and unexpected, remaining with the flow of reading, and discovering news on a printed page.
Remembering just before the internet online world began, when I was executive editor of weekly newspapers in northern Virginia, I emphasized to our teams the goal of newspaper lay-out: to attract a reader to enjoy running their eyes over the whole page, to lure the viewer to stop and read all stories whether or not having interest in the topic in advance.
This passion for me started a long time ago. My parents read papers aloud to us children early morning even before I could read. Then from childhood in western North Carolina and later around the world, wherever living or traveling, I sought out morning papers, always loved them for early meditative reading.
Still now in these times of widespread anxiety, I read my newspapers delivered overnight to my door: now back home again, the Asheville Citizen Times, today’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Or, if traveling, I always locate papers early morning in a hotel lobby, or on city streets’ few remaining newsstands to read in a café. Heaven for me.
Today, as the world changes, and we’re facing the prospect of no more paper newspapers, I wonder about readers in the earlier dawn of printing. Were those who had access to handwritten books aware at the time they were savoring some last human joys of reading beautiful manuscripts?
Reading news-papers meditatively in the morning before email and online news is predicted soon to be anachronistic. Yet I hold back from allowing myself to succumb first to digital intrusions and instead read today’s printed paper reports of yesterday’s news.
Following the flow, reading through the panoply of news stories, relaxing into deep immersion, I finally finish as if dazed with a sense of satisfaction. Then I’m ready to view all the new news confronting me online throughout the day.
Stranded on a desert island, I would, as my father suggested long ago, want to have a newspaper.
Elizabeth “Liz” Colton, an author, educator, diplomat, Emmy Award winning journalist covering news worldwide, currently teaches diplomacy & strategic communications/media for UNITAR’s and international universities’ global courses. She also serves as Board-Chair of Reporters Sans Frontieres/Reporters Without Borders RSF-USA/North America.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Peace in the morning: Reading print newspapers brings immersive calm to start my day
