Well, it’s done.
I have read (at least) a biography of each United States president.
I feel just how I felt after I crossed the finish line of the marathon I completed. Well, not exactly, reading doesn’t make you so sore you have to wonder how you’re going to step over a curb. What I mean by this is that I’ve been working toward this end for a while and now it’s here. That, and I almost can’t believe it.
This project took much longer than I thought it would. My original goal was to read about each president in a year’s time. I read a fair amount, and less than a biography a week didn’t seem like too big of a challenge. There was so much that I didn’t factor in, though. One of the early problems that I had was that I went in reading voraciously about all of the ones who originally intrigued me. Then, when I took a look at my list, I saw that I was making a problem for myself leaving a large swath of relatively unknowns to conquer.
I am left wondering what I will do next, what will take the place of this project in my life. I’m not done reading about the presidents. I still find them fascinating. Also, there are a number of biographies that I didn’t read in order to complete this project, but wanted to read for my own enjoyment.
This project started accidentally. I was regularly attending a writing group and had workshopped in a short period of time a poem about the second President Bush and one about President Nixon. Someone in the group asked me whether I was planning to write a poem about each one. I answered that I didn’t know enough about them to write poems about each of them. The thought that followed this in my mind was, “but I could…” That was the germ of this project.
I have been writing poems about the presidents here and there, and plan to pick this back up, which I suppose could be seen as the second chapter of the project.
Being done with the first part is a bit bittersweet. Over the last few years, I have come to feel very attached to the project. I have felt attached to the presidents themselves in a way. My ears are sensitive to any discussion of them. This project has enhanced my enjoyment of other things that I read, having painted a good background for much of what has happened in the US for the last 200+ years. I am grateful that I decided to take this on, but sad that it is over.