I was at a Starbucks Coffee Shop the other day having coffee and reading a book. It was Sunday and I had already read the Sunday New York Times at home. I was at a table with someone I meet with every so often there. She was reading the Times slowly. The man at the next table was getting agitated for some reason and he kept looking at my friend who is an elderly woman in her early 60's. He was a young man in his 20's.
"Do you have to take so long to read that paper?" He finally burst out to her.
My friend looked up at him: "I beg your pardon?" She said obviously surprised as I was.
"You have had that paper for over an hour. There are no more newspapers." He said and motioned to an empty newspaper stand."Oh." She said looking at him. "What section do you want?"
"I will decide. Just give me the whole paper. You have had it long enough." He said.
"Look, I was willing to share the paper, but this paper is mine. I paid for it when I bought my coffee." She said.
"That's true." I said.
The young man looked very embarrassed and got up almost knocking his coffee over. "You read too damn slow anyway." He said as he left.
My friend looked at me and smiled. "It took me so long to learn to slow down when I read. There is a lot of good articles in the Times. I don't want to miss any of it. I was just reading in the paper today that being slow is the last luxury and I truly believe that."
I thought about that conversation a lot since coming home. I used to read novels, biographies, whatever very fast because I felt in a hurry to digest all of the wonderful books in the world. Heavens knows there were a bunch that were coming out everyday and more that were around from times past. Even then, I felt there were more books to read now than ever before and I saw the growing stacks of books for me to read growing higher and higher every day.
Then I started to read books that were ones that I had read before and forgotten. I had read the
books earlier fast and furious and missed so much. There are books one needs to read over and over again. I found out when I slowed down and had a pencil in my hand I gained more in that first reading then when I read the way I did before.I am reading a book in which I wanted to write something about in here. So, I chose one small selection by random and read it slower than I would have. At the end of the short piece I was amazed to what I had just read. I could not believe that the author was that great of a writer, but he was. I was not the reader he deserved. I read an essay by someone else and went very slow and it happened again. It was a great essay and I thought one of the best essays I have ever read on writing and reading. I had already read it and thought it was alright. It had deserved a reader who slowed down and just read it. I have a suspicion that my friend in Starbucks was exactly right. In reading slow is a luxury I can't afford to forget and not nurture.
I am going to write about those two selections taken by random tomorrow. What I did want to write about today is that I have been reading too fast, writing too fast and maybe going through
life too fast. It's not important to read all of the books that are out there, but it is important to read the ones that I am reading well. Being slow is 
a wonderful luxury.
