This Miserables Year ~

I’ve made an intentional choice this year to take on some misery, to allow heartbreak and desolation to be my daily companions.

I’m finally reading Les Mis.

I’ve seen the Broadway musical, watched the Hollywood movies, rented the 25^th anniversary PBS special, worn the Cosette t-shirt and sung ‘On My Own’ at the top of my lungs with my puppy dog staring at me curiously and whispering “oh my God” under her breath.

It was time to read the book.

I took a stab at reading it several years ago. A friend of mine is a voracious reader, and we were lamenting the lack of time or opportunity to be in a book group. So, we made up our own. We were meeting up for coffee once a month anyhow, so we decided to invite Monsieur Hugo to join us.

It turns out I like the idea of a book club.

The actual reading and preparation, the pressure to enter into the discussion, not so much. I was able to fake my way through the first few meetings, letting my friend do most of the talking, while I nodded thoughtfully and sipped my latte. But a few meetings into it, she began to press me for my insights on the classic story of law, grace and redemption. I knew I was busted when the best I could muster sounded something like this: “um, well, I really liked that part when that guy went to that place and saw that thing.”  We kept meeting for coffee after that, but Les Mis went back on the bookshelf.

I saw the newest film version this past Christmas. Hugh Jackman had me at “my name is Jean Valjean!” My sister brought her newly purchased e-reader to town for the holidays, and though I’d pledged to never support such a device, certain that I would not be one to contribute to the demise of the indie bookstore, there I was on New Year’s Day, in line at the B&N big-box, setting down the cash for my own.

Les Mis was my first e-book purchase. Successfully downloading an e-anything is cause for cake and balloons at my house, as I am not the savviest techie girl. So when I saw these beautiful words, ”download complete”, I ran my fingers over the smooth screen bearing the tiny Hugo image, fiddled with the back-light, figured out how to tap-tap just right to turn a page,  and dove into 1815 France.

I am reading Hugo on the bus. I have a short commute, but filling my head with his delicious and extravagant words before I settle into my gray-walled cubicle is a fantastic way to start my work day. With the jostling of the bus and the challenge of reading with tri-focals, I picked a font and a type-size that brings my e-reader version of Les Mis in at 4268 pages. That’s a lot of misery.

I ride the bus to work 18 days each month, so at 20-ish “pages” per day, I’ll be done by the end of the year.

I have never been a big fan of signing up for anything that may take a year to finish. I’m a little bit prone to distraction, a little likely to move on to something else, more of a starter than a finisher.

But that’s another thing I want to be intentional about this year, I want to finish something I start. It always helps to get from one side of a hope to the other with the buddy system.  You know, a walking partner, some sort of accountability check-in, a person to tell your best-kept secrets to. What’s daunting becomes do-able. 4268 pages becomes 20.

With Jean Valjean, Fantine and Marius, the naughty Thernardiers’ and the beloved Bishop riding the bus with me every day, this feels different, like it is going to get done.  I am going to finish Victor Hugo’s “Les Mis” by the end of the year.

I’ve never been so happy to be so miserable.