As it turns out, my journey in literacy has basically turned out to be one of those sardonic jokes God plays on His people. It’s a pretty good one, too. The implicit promise, the dangling carrot, in learning to read well as a child, is that one could, if they read enough substantive things, eventually wind up discovering some kind of capital-T Truth about life, or the universe, or the afterlife, or whatever; that somewhere, there is a finite number of things to learn, and one could become Enlightened [capital intended]. The punch line of the joke is that the reader (who has worked really hard to learn to read effectively) eventually reaches a disclaimer in the fine print of life. That disclaimer basically states: the reader is actually just entitled to the opportunity to grapple with the issues that compose the human experience. The solutions are not guaranteed.
My taste for illustrated books began to change over time. My grandparents gave me a box of eight books in the “Great Illustrated Classics” series, a collection of heavily condensed popular novels, with a few pictures thrown in to boot. I eventually realized that these books barely resemble their namesake works, but at the time I saw these novels as more legitimate than the “picture books” I had been reading. The illustrations were a mere afterthought, but the titles were heavy hitters, The Call of the Wild, Around the World in Eighty Days, Little Women, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to name a few. Reading these books gave legitimacy to literature in my eyes. I’m sure that if someone asked me at the time I would not have been able to give a definition of “classic,” but the word seemed so important that it stuck in my mind and began to warp my sense of the importance of the narrative.
The smell of anesthesia is what reminds me of reading. As a young child I went through many ear surgeries—due to a benign tumor that ate away the bones and tissue that make up the inner ear. I went through at least five doctors and more than six surgeries to be able to live. With the constant ins and outs of hospitals and doctor offices, test, and school absences, reading was the only thing I was allowed to do while I sat in waiting rooms. At the hospital after surgeries, books were my only friends. I was scared and never really knew what was going on, so I read. My books took me to a different world. My hospital bed turned into a boat as I sailed down the Mississippi with Huck Finn. The gross medicine I had to take was turned into the green solution that Alan Brewster concocted in Top Secret. I can look back now and thank God for allowing me the gift and inspiration for reading and writing, without those things I would have been stuck in bed for a good part of my life, simply frustrated.
My closest of those four friends was Sara. She and I kept our tradition of writing in spirals alive throughout high school. These notebooks are full of chronological life changing events, our opinions, and view points as teenage girls on various topics, such as boys, parents fighting and in my case divorcing, love, break ups, sex, personal issues, learning to drive or in Sara’s case crashing, sleepovers, anger, classes, homework, and our future. These notebooks truly helped me through a very tough time. My parents divorced in the seventh grade and as high school continue I began to realize the real reasons. My mother decided to become dependent on other substances other than her family. My parents were married for twelve years, which meant when you did the math correctly I was born before they were married. For a long time, I was very angry and hurt. Between Sara’s words and mine I began to heal. These notebooks were private, safe, and comforting. I didn’t feel as alone when I could write to Sara, even without her presence. When she had the notebook, I needed another way to deal with the pain. I began to rekindle my love for reading.
Reading is my worst nightmare. When I read, I develop attention deficit disorder (ADD) within ten minutes of reading. I think of everything else I could or should be doing besides reading. I have great difficulty focusing on what I read and usually end up reading the same paragraph five times before I understand what it is about. I become very frustrated when trying to read and usually just give up and walk away from whatever I am reading.
For so long I brought home low grades in math and was being grounded for this. This produced anxiety because tutors couldn’t help and I hated my teachers as well. No matter how hard I tried and prayed privately, publicly I failed. I brought home F’s in math for the longest, until the 6th grade in Frankfurt, Germany, when I had the best math teacher ever, her name was Ms Crawford. I wished Ms. Crawford could’ve moved with us because as soon as we moved to Italy the F’s came back. When I was with Ms Crawford I managed A's and B’s and understood everything.
As it turns out, my journey in literacy has basically turned out to be one of those sardonic jokes God plays on His people. It’s a pretty good one, too. The implicit promise, the dangling carrot, in learning to read well as a child, is that one could, if they read enough substantive things, eventually wind up discovering some kind of capital-T Truth about life, or the universe, or the afterlife, or whatever; that somewhere, there is a finite number of things to learn, and one could become Enlightened [capital intended]. The punch line of the joke is that the reader (who has worked really hard to learn to read effectively) eventually reaches a disclaimer in the fine print of life. That disclaimer basically states: the reader is actually just entitled to the opportunity to grapple with the issues that compose the human experience. The solutions are not guaranteed.
ReplyDeleteMy taste for illustrated books began to change over time. My grandparents gave me a box of eight books in the “Great Illustrated Classics” series, a collection of heavily condensed popular novels, with a few pictures thrown in to boot. I eventually realized that these books barely resemble their namesake works, but at the time I saw these novels as more legitimate than the “picture books” I had been reading. The illustrations were a mere afterthought, but the titles were heavy hitters, The Call of the Wild, Around the World in Eighty Days, Little Women, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to name a few. Reading these books gave legitimacy to literature in my eyes. I’m sure that if someone asked me at the time I would not have been able to give a definition of “classic,” but the word seemed so important that it stuck in my mind and began to warp my sense of the importance of the narrative.
ReplyDeleteThe smell of anesthesia is what reminds me of reading. As a young child I went through many ear surgeries—due to a benign tumor that ate away the bones and tissue that make up the inner ear. I went through at least five doctors and more than six surgeries to be able to live. With the constant ins and outs of hospitals and doctor offices, test, and school absences, reading was the only thing I was allowed to do while I sat in waiting rooms. At the hospital after surgeries, books were my only friends. I was scared and never really knew what was going on, so I read. My books took me to a different world. My hospital bed turned into a boat as I sailed down the Mississippi with Huck Finn. The gross medicine I had to take was turned into the green solution that Alan Brewster concocted in Top Secret. I can look back now and thank God for allowing me the gift and inspiration for reading and writing, without those things I would have been stuck in bed for a good part of my life, simply frustrated.
ReplyDeleteMy closest of those four friends was Sara. She and I kept our tradition of writing in spirals alive throughout high school. These notebooks are full of chronological life changing events, our opinions, and view points as teenage girls on various topics, such as boys, parents fighting and in my case divorcing, love, break ups, sex, personal issues, learning to drive or in Sara’s case crashing, sleepovers, anger, classes, homework, and our future.
ReplyDeleteThese notebooks truly helped me through a very tough time. My parents divorced in the seventh grade and as high school continue I began to realize the real reasons. My mother decided to become dependent on other substances other than her family. My parents were married for twelve years, which meant when you did the math correctly I was born before they were married. For a long time, I was very angry and hurt. Between Sara’s words and mine I began to heal. These notebooks were private, safe, and comforting. I didn’t feel as alone when I could write to Sara, even without her presence. When she had the notebook, I needed another way to deal with the pain. I began to rekindle my love for reading.
Reading is my worst nightmare. When I read, I develop attention deficit disorder (ADD) within ten minutes of reading. I think of everything else I could or should be doing besides reading. I have great difficulty focusing on what I read and usually end up reading the same paragraph five times before I understand what it is about. I become very frustrated when trying to read and usually just give up and walk away from whatever I am reading.
ReplyDeleteFor so long I brought home low grades in math and was being grounded for this. This produced anxiety because tutors couldn’t help and I hated my teachers as well. No matter how hard I tried and prayed privately, publicly I failed. I brought home F’s in math for the longest, until the 6th grade in Frankfurt, Germany, when I had the best math teacher ever, her name was Ms Crawford. I wished Ms. Crawford could’ve moved with us because as soon as we moved to Italy the F’s came back. When I was with Ms Crawford I managed A's and B’s and understood everything.
ReplyDelete