Better of Beth Ashley: A life full of studying and a few dabbling – Marin Independent Journal

Editor’s be aware: The IJ is reprinting among the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2007.

Powell’s Books in Portland is seemingly well-known nationwide, however the first time I noticed it was final week.

Portland is filled with different vacationer sights, however my nephew-traveling companion Bruce determined Powell’s, of all of them, was what we should always see.

It’s the largest bookstore I’ve ever visited — a metropolis block extensive and two tales excessive, packed to the gunwales with books, books on each possible matter by each possible creator.

Huge areas of the shop had been color-coded — Americana, polar journey, poetry. There was an entire wall of books about chess.

We went proper to the purple part as a result of that’s the place the restrooms had been, and for greater than an hour we by no means left.

The purple part was historical past, politics and journalism.

My hand went out to a minimum of 50 titles, however remembering the teetering piles of unread books by my bedside, I purchased solely 4, three by Chalmers Johnson on the state of the American empire and one a historical past of the Modoc wars.

A thousand extra had been tempting.

So many books, so little time.

It was exhilarating. It was miserable. I understand I most likely don’t have sufficient time left to learn what I’m longing to learn or study what I’m longing to know.

I’m kicking myself now for the hundreds of hours I’ve wasted doing crossword puzzles after I might need learn Marcel Proust.

It’s humorous how life makes use of up all of your time whenever you’re not paying consideration, and you find yourself mourning what you now assume you coulda, shoulda carried out with it.

All this was very a lot on my thoughts throughout lunch with outdated pals a number of days later, and the subject beneath dialogue was what jobs we had held in our lifetimes and what jobs we wished we had held.

People typically communicate enviously of my job as a result of as a newspaper reporter I get to go fascinating locations and meet fascinating folks.

As I advised my pals, newspaper reporters get to know just a little bit about lots of issues however hardly ever know something in depth.

Regret in life is fairly fruitless, and I attempt to not bask in it, significantly when I understand how fortunate I’ve been.

But a small nook of me needs that what I do know weren’t fairly so superficial, so unanchored to firmly remembered information.

It can be good to be an professional at one thing, not simply an mental dabbler.

If I had learn extra, earlier, perhaps I could possibly be a professor of English historical past or the go-to individual on baleen whales.

Not that being a generalist isn’t enjoyable. As a reporter, one learns to ask questions. And most individuals are delighted to share what they know.

So one retains selecting up a truth right here, a revelation there, and fairly quickly the inch-deep retailer of knowledge is a fraction extra profound.

Unless you neglect all the pieces as quickly as you study it, which is starting to occur to me.

At our girls’ lunch, we additionally mentioned our school days and the way completely different school is for our youngsters, most of whom get coaching for particular (well-paying) jobs within the postgraduate world.

When I went to school, I dabbled.

When my youngsters went to school, I inspired them to check something and all the pieces that them.

“This is your big chance,” I stated.

As a outcome, all of us beloved school however ended up on the decrease rungs of the skilled ladders. My youngsters are lecturers, small businessmen and — oh gawd — journalists of a kind.

We are all contaminated with a curiosity in regards to the world and a reluctance — heaven forbid! — to discover a slim focus.

We navigate by way of life with nice pleasure and large distraction.

Give us a bookstore like Powell’s, and we simply spin our wheels.

In the final month I’ve learn books on Louis XIV’s lovers, Sherman’s Civil War march by way of the South, California’s Modoc Wars, Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and former Marin creator Dave Eggers’ “What Is the What,” in regards to the Lost Boys of Sudan.

It’s exhausting to synthesize range like that.

The solely factor to do is preserve studying.