I'm a guarded person. I don't volunteer information. I need someone to ask me pointed, direct questions if they want answers.
Part of this is because I sometimes I don't really understand my own thoughts or emotions. (Do we ever really?) School struggles get mixed up with financial worries. Friends, family and boy problems all seems related. I'm sad because a cat I love died, but it's not until I find out how many hundreds of dollars I owe in Federal taxes that I start to cry. I think this is called "being a girl." I'm sure I'm not unique. Except I don't spill my emotional word vomit on everyone. I listen to your word vomit. Then I nod and sigh and wait for you to ask about how I am. If you don't, the discussion is over.
I hate being teased. As a middle child and the youngest of all my friends I live in fear of being seen as juvenile, or disrespected for having "lesser" problems. As I get older the age gap between me and those people I am closest to widens. As a girl, my friends were two to three years older. Now some of my closest companions are 28, 34, older even. I wasn't born guarded and I wasn't bored afraid of being teased.
***
I used to keep a diary. Lately I have stopped. I went through a rough, confusing eight months. This month has just begun to feel ok. I stopped writing in my diary because I started to lie in it. I started to lie because I was afraid to write the truth. I was afraid to write the truth because.......
When I was twelve I visited my best friend in the Pennsylvania. My whole family would go on yearly trips to visit her whole family. We all squeezed in together, did our schoolwork together, played together, did chores together. In general, these trips are some of my fondest childhood memories. A naive young me, misjudging the maturity of her friend and sister, brought a Composition notebook along with her. That notebook was my diary. The overwrought diary of a twelve year old. I mean, I said some insane stuff in there. There was, however, a level of respect I assumed my sister and friend had for me. I would never read their diary. They would not read mine.
Wrong. So damn wrong.
They read it. The whole thing. I had one of those little-girl crushes on a fictional character. I was relatively lonely at that time and suffered from an overactive imagination. I wrote about this crush in my diary. Which my best friend and sister read. I previously trusted the two of them with my life. I looked up to them like they were the sun and the moon. But they read my diary, and my naive little world came crashing down.
I think that was the first time I understood the concept of being unintentionally cruel. My sister and my best friend did not just read my diary. They talked about it nonstop. They teased me mercilessly. For years things I wrote in there would come up as the butt of a joke. I didn't cry or, looking back, let on how humiliated I was. Inside though, it was one of the worst feelings I've ever had. I felt betrayed, mocked, disrespected, unwanted, and unworthy.
I've spent the last eight years trying to fix that feeling. I will never forgive them for what they did. I never quite trusted them again the same way. (Side note: I love them both, still. Forever. Just, you know. With a grain of salt.) But I learned to be guarded. If I could be teased so much for a little-girl crush on a fictional character when I was twelve, what could I expect when the stakes got higher? I hold my cards closer to my chest.
***
Even right now, I'm going through something similar. When my secrets wriggle themselves out of me, panic sets
in. It doesn't matter if you're trying to help me. It doesn't who you are or how nice you are. I'm convinced I'm going to be teased.
***
I'm twenty. (Almost twenty-one, shut up.) I get defensive about my age. I try to prove myself. In jest, people I love are often unintentionally cruel to me. It usually has to do with my age, my position in life. Little things about "not understanding" something. Little jokes about me being "too young to remember" whatever they're talking about. I'm sick of being called cute. I don't want to be adorable. It feels like a weakness. No one is trying to hurt me, but it hurts. Yet I know I am also unintentionally cruel to others. God, I just was, barely a week ago. It's something we all do. It's one of the most depressing, gross ways to hurt someone. It's so hard to apologize for. No one wants their problems to be mitigated. No one wants their heart to be stepped on. So yes, I'm guarded. It's something I constantly carry in me, but I don't think it necessarily defines me. It only shows sometimes, when things get awkward. When I feel set upon. I get quiet when I'm afraid of being teased.
I learned through that experience that sometimes your friends are your worst enemies. I guess I also learned to stop writing my embarrassing moments down in ink where it can be found and read by anyone; to keep my mouth shut sometimes. And I learned that unintentional cruelty is the worst. It can't be battled. If someone doesn't realize what they're doing to you, they're not going to stop. They don't understand. I can cry and complain for the next twenty years, but my sister and friend will never exactly understand what they did that day. I don't think I've ever even gotten a formal apology for it. Actually, more than that, my sister still teases me about... basically everything in my life.
To be honest though, I'm probably safer not writing about my dramatic love life with a fictional character in a notebook. I wish my twelve year old self had had more discretion. So it's not all bad. I learned that there are somethings no one else ever will understand. So just... those things can be kept to yourself. Or at least, held onto till the right moment.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
The Casual Male Friend
(disclaimer: use of terms "boy" "man" and "guy" are used interchangeably/stylistically in most places; not a commentary on the state of manhood or a slam on particular males I know.)
It's not my fault that none of my friends had brothers.
Somewhere between Nicky and Ryan, in those five years between 1988 and 1994, no one my mother knew gave birth to a son.
It wasn't on purpose. I don't blame anyone. But from an early age, I lacked the skill it took to talk to a boy who was the same age as me. Add on the that the natural boy-hating, anythingyoucandoIcandobetter attitude of any eight-year-old girl, and the male species did not even show up on my radar.
***
It took until I was twelve to fall into a new social circle. New families, new faces. And a select few new boys. Naturally, at the rate I was going, the first boy who spoke to me, directly, making eye contact, more than once, was going to the one to fall in love with. But I was not to be Joel's soul mate. And along with the burgeoning crush, any chance of actually befriending a nice, decent boy was gone. I could have tried to befriend his twin brother, but I didn't. So there went the middle school years, and I wasted the opportunity to get to know boys as friends, as humans, as more than (to be quite blunt) objects of potential future marriage and mating.
Through high school every boy I met still was a mystery. I did not know how they worked. I did not have first hand experience with them. They were something I was familiar with, but intensive inspection could not replace an instruction manual. At this time I started going to a church with more than a dozen boys "my age." I spoke to them casually before and after service. I went to youth group a few times. One of them, Charlie (now married), was the first boy I've ever liked for himself, independently of falling in love with him. But I could never get past the initial terror that boys were not girls and actually attempt to be their friend.
My first friend who was a boy turned into my first boyfriend, and still is my friend who is a boy.
***
But to backtrack in all of this, I was not friendless. I had girlfriends. In fact, I will go so far as to say I was quite popular as a kid, with a grand total of four girls claiming me as their "best friend" at one point. I love girls, and now, women. I love our personalities and our loyalty and our diversity and our ability to be honest and dive in. (Confession: men still confuse me.)
It puts me off to hear a girl say she is only friends with boys because she "doesn't like girls." I don't even know what that's suppose to mean. I am a girl's girl. I need to be able to make casual and slightly creepy passes about men, often. I have learned that doesn't really work while hanging with guys. I like being able to make casual and slightly gross comments about my menstrual cycle. I get the feeling casual male friends would not appreciate that. If I have 45 minutes to spare and I'm in Manhattan, I usually find a Macy's or a Bed Bath & Beyond, so I can look at crockery. I talk about babies. I talk about my eating habits. I can be a nightmarish stereotype. I am a girl's girl.
That being said, there are times when I am jealous of my girl friends with boy friends. One of my good friends is a boy's girl. She loves me, but apart from that, a vast majority of her friends are men. She hangs out at bars with guys. She is one-of-them. I am not. And will never be. "I just want a casual male friend!" This was my mantra. Even now, having somehow obtained a few of those coveted male friends, I will never be that girl at the bar with all the guys. Even now, if I mention the same (male) name more than three times in my house, my family assumes I have an ill-fated crush on him. (The problem is I usually do.)
***
My dad is famous for believing that men and women can't be friends. I don't know if that is true, but I am beginning to believe that it might be. At least, I doubt I will ever have a male friend (who I'm not married to) who will be a close companion and stay in my life for as long as some of my girl friends have been around. People grow closer together and further apart as their situations in life change. Right now I might be in a situation where I can have closer male friends, but I'm sure that will change with age.
While desperately trying to aquire casual male friends, I've learned not to not force it. I like having more men in my life, though I don't really think a male best friends is for me. But I like men. They've fun to be around, they're fun to talk to and have lunch with. They're great coworkers and classmates. I can go to the out with men and have coffee with them and talk about whatever. It doesn't feel strange anymore.
To finish this off, it has been in church where I have made most of my male friends. Single men. (Although there's not many of those left, everyone is coupling off like mad.) Guys with girlfriends. (Like Raleigh, one of the best people I've ever met just in general.) Married men. (My pastors are my friends! And Martin Fern.) These friendships are ones that are rooted in our being a family. A church family, where everyone has each other's best interests in mind. Where there is no pressure. And those are the most natural and pleasant sort of friendship I can imagine having with a man. Those friendships, I hope, are ones to last.
It's not my fault that none of my friends had brothers.
Somewhere between Nicky and Ryan, in those five years between 1988 and 1994, no one my mother knew gave birth to a son.
It wasn't on purpose. I don't blame anyone. But from an early age, I lacked the skill it took to talk to a boy who was the same age as me. Add on the that the natural boy-hating, anythingyoucandoIcandobetter attitude of any eight-year-old girl, and the male species did not even show up on my radar.
***
It took until I was twelve to fall into a new social circle. New families, new faces. And a select few new boys. Naturally, at the rate I was going, the first boy who spoke to me, directly, making eye contact, more than once, was going to the one to fall in love with. But I was not to be Joel's soul mate. And along with the burgeoning crush, any chance of actually befriending a nice, decent boy was gone. I could have tried to befriend his twin brother, but I didn't. So there went the middle school years, and I wasted the opportunity to get to know boys as friends, as humans, as more than (to be quite blunt) objects of potential future marriage and mating.
Through high school every boy I met still was a mystery. I did not know how they worked. I did not have first hand experience with them. They were something I was familiar with, but intensive inspection could not replace an instruction manual. At this time I started going to a church with more than a dozen boys "my age." I spoke to them casually before and after service. I went to youth group a few times. One of them, Charlie (now married), was the first boy I've ever liked for himself, independently of falling in love with him. But I could never get past the initial terror that boys were not girls and actually attempt to be their friend.
My first friend who was a boy turned into my first boyfriend, and still is my friend who is a boy.
***
But to backtrack in all of this, I was not friendless. I had girlfriends. In fact, I will go so far as to say I was quite popular as a kid, with a grand total of four girls claiming me as their "best friend" at one point. I love girls, and now, women. I love our personalities and our loyalty and our diversity and our ability to be honest and dive in. (Confession: men still confuse me.)
It puts me off to hear a girl say she is only friends with boys because she "doesn't like girls." I don't even know what that's suppose to mean. I am a girl's girl. I need to be able to make casual and slightly creepy passes about men, often. I have learned that doesn't really work while hanging with guys. I like being able to make casual and slightly gross comments about my menstrual cycle. I get the feeling casual male friends would not appreciate that. If I have 45 minutes to spare and I'm in Manhattan, I usually find a Macy's or a Bed Bath & Beyond, so I can look at crockery. I talk about babies. I talk about my eating habits. I can be a nightmarish stereotype. I am a girl's girl.
That being said, there are times when I am jealous of my girl friends with boy friends. One of my good friends is a boy's girl. She loves me, but apart from that, a vast majority of her friends are men. She hangs out at bars with guys. She is one-of-them. I am not. And will never be. "I just want a casual male friend!" This was my mantra. Even now, having somehow obtained a few of those coveted male friends, I will never be that girl at the bar with all the guys. Even now, if I mention the same (male) name more than three times in my house, my family assumes I have an ill-fated crush on him. (The problem is I usually do.)
***
My dad is famous for believing that men and women can't be friends. I don't know if that is true, but I am beginning to believe that it might be. At least, I doubt I will ever have a male friend (who I'm not married to) who will be a close companion and stay in my life for as long as some of my girl friends have been around. People grow closer together and further apart as their situations in life change. Right now I might be in a situation where I can have closer male friends, but I'm sure that will change with age.
While desperately trying to aquire casual male friends, I've learned not to not force it. I like having more men in my life, though I don't really think a male best friends is for me. But I like men. They've fun to be around, they're fun to talk to and have lunch with. They're great coworkers and classmates. I can go to the out with men and have coffee with them and talk about whatever. It doesn't feel strange anymore.
To finish this off, it has been in church where I have made most of my male friends. Single men. (Although there's not many of those left, everyone is coupling off like mad.) Guys with girlfriends. (Like Raleigh, one of the best people I've ever met just in general.) Married men. (My pastors are my friends! And Martin Fern.) These friendships are ones that are rooted in our being a family. A church family, where everyone has each other's best interests in mind. Where there is no pressure. And those are the most natural and pleasant sort of friendship I can imagine having with a man. Those friendships, I hope, are ones to last.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Something To Hold On To
I get very sentimental about inanimate objects.
(It's only two weeks to February 4th, the 14th anniversary of my brother Daniel's death.
Lately I've been grappeling with a fear of getting married- of loving someone else that much. Because most likely he would die first. And how would I watch him die?
But my parents are aging, aren't they? Don't they suffer through some new side effect of aging every year?
And didn't my little sister end up in the emergency room last year? And sometimes, don't you lie in bed and listen to her breathe?)
To go one further, I associate my loved ones with my stuffed animals.
***
Teddy was the first. A simple name for a classic teddy bear. He was my father's, from Aeropostale. Currently I own somewhere around forty stuffed animals. I don't know what to do with them. Most of them were accumulated in childhood. Some of them more recently. Two years ago I had to put a definite stop on my stuffed animal accumulation habits, because soon I would become a stuffed animal hoarder and I wouldn't be able to bring them with me when I moved out because there would be too many.
I can't get rid of them. I can't get rid of them because they are, in my mind, connected to people I love, and worse, to those who are dead, and even stranger, to those I haven't loved yet. A strange habit I got into as a child with a dying brother. Cut me some slack. The oldest are Teddy and Boudica. And Rocky, who was Daniel's. Bullet, Jack, Beary, Leona, Calum's Otter, Heath... There are more. They all have names and I remember them all.
***
I am afraid of death. I have a confidence in the next life, but I am terrified of people dying and leaving me here alone, now. I am terrified of being a widow. I am terrified of losing a child. (Of course I am, how could I not be?) I went through a time when I was convinced our apartment was going to burn down. So I packed an emergency bag and kept it at the foot of my bed. In case I woke in the middle of the night, house in flames around me, I could grab the bag and run. In the bag was Teddy, Boudica, and Rocky. Of course. My stuffed animals, in a very real way, for years, signified life for me. I truly believed that they were living things that had feelings, needed love and care, and could feel pain. I grew out of that belief, eventually, but no one as afraid of death as I am could actively get rid of her stuffed animals that she once believed to be alive. It'd be something like murder.
I own about forty stuffed animals and I don't know what to do with them. They are intricately connected to my past; a childhood I can not reclaim or remember because it is missing a prime member. They are one of the few material things that lived through my old life. They were loved by a version of myself that no longer exists.
The problem is stuffed animals don't die. And I can't kill them. Rocky and Spotty outlived Daniel. He slept with them, loved them, touched them. And they outlived him. They're living on, in a box. And I'm living on. And every year I grow further and further from the little girl who loved her brother and his stuffed dogs, but the dogs remain the same. So I can't get rid of them. Because they are still a part of me. They are what is left of my brother. They are everything I've lost- safe, in plastic storage containers.
Yet things change. People change. Life changes. The Ronald McDonald House has been renovated and Schneiders Hospital has been renamed. I am different. My family is different. The network of people who love me is different. Every day little things change. The mural in Veselka is different. They moved George Washington Crossing the Delaware. We own a different car. We painted. Every day the New York that Daniel lived in changes a little bit more, and every day I change in it. One day, neither I nor this city will be recognizable as the place where Daniel lived.
Death is scary because death is change. Death is a no-going-back difference in the world that you can't argue and fight your way out of. So, if I keep Teddy and Boudica and Rocky in a plastic storage container, if I keep them in my emergency bag at the foot of my bed, if I love them like a time capsule, if I can keep them from falling apart.... then there they are. Unchanging. Safe. Alive.
***
But what's the point? I think about Winnie-the-Pooh, sitting in a glass box in the Schwartzman branch. I think of when he lived in Donnell, before that. He has outlived A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin. What's he doing now, but slowly falling apart?
And what the hell am I going to do with Teddy and Boudica and Rocky and the others? No one's going to erect a special exhibit and put them on display. "Stuffed Animals of Girl who Lost her Brother." Because the older I get, and the more tragedy the rest of the world goes through, the less significant my loss is. When I was six, my tragedy was unique. Now almost everyone I know has lost a parent, a sibling, a grandfather, an uncle, a best friend, a neighbor. I can't expect the world will stay the same for me if it doesn't stay stagnant for anyone else.
Some things are in my control. And until I can think of some alternative option, until I can grow out of whatever this rut is, until I can accept that one day there will be nothing in this world that was seen and touched and loved by Daniel... then I'm keeping them. All forty-something of them. Even the ones Daniel never touched. Because someone else loved those- a sibling, parent, friend. And as long as that someone is alive, then the stuffed animal is an insurance. A little piece of them. Something to look in the eye and hold on to.
(It's only two weeks to February 4th, the 14th anniversary of my brother Daniel's death.
Lately I've been grappeling with a fear of getting married- of loving someone else that much. Because most likely he would die first. And how would I watch him die?
But my parents are aging, aren't they? Don't they suffer through some new side effect of aging every year?
And didn't my little sister end up in the emergency room last year? And sometimes, don't you lie in bed and listen to her breathe?)
To go one further, I associate my loved ones with my stuffed animals.
***
Teddy was the first. A simple name for a classic teddy bear. He was my father's, from Aeropostale. Currently I own somewhere around forty stuffed animals. I don't know what to do with them. Most of them were accumulated in childhood. Some of them more recently. Two years ago I had to put a definite stop on my stuffed animal accumulation habits, because soon I would become a stuffed animal hoarder and I wouldn't be able to bring them with me when I moved out because there would be too many.
I can't get rid of them. I can't get rid of them because they are, in my mind, connected to people I love, and worse, to those who are dead, and even stranger, to those I haven't loved yet. A strange habit I got into as a child with a dying brother. Cut me some slack. The oldest are Teddy and Boudica. And Rocky, who was Daniel's. Bullet, Jack, Beary, Leona, Calum's Otter, Heath... There are more. They all have names and I remember them all.
***
I am afraid of death. I have a confidence in the next life, but I am terrified of people dying and leaving me here alone, now. I am terrified of being a widow. I am terrified of losing a child. (Of course I am, how could I not be?) I went through a time when I was convinced our apartment was going to burn down. So I packed an emergency bag and kept it at the foot of my bed. In case I woke in the middle of the night, house in flames around me, I could grab the bag and run. In the bag was Teddy, Boudica, and Rocky. Of course. My stuffed animals, in a very real way, for years, signified life for me. I truly believed that they were living things that had feelings, needed love and care, and could feel pain. I grew out of that belief, eventually, but no one as afraid of death as I am could actively get rid of her stuffed animals that she once believed to be alive. It'd be something like murder.
I own about forty stuffed animals and I don't know what to do with them. They are intricately connected to my past; a childhood I can not reclaim or remember because it is missing a prime member. They are one of the few material things that lived through my old life. They were loved by a version of myself that no longer exists.
The problem is stuffed animals don't die. And I can't kill them. Rocky and Spotty outlived Daniel. He slept with them, loved them, touched them. And they outlived him. They're living on, in a box. And I'm living on. And every year I grow further and further from the little girl who loved her brother and his stuffed dogs, but the dogs remain the same. So I can't get rid of them. Because they are still a part of me. They are what is left of my brother. They are everything I've lost- safe, in plastic storage containers.
Yet things change. People change. Life changes. The Ronald McDonald House has been renovated and Schneiders Hospital has been renamed. I am different. My family is different. The network of people who love me is different. Every day little things change. The mural in Veselka is different. They moved George Washington Crossing the Delaware. We own a different car. We painted. Every day the New York that Daniel lived in changes a little bit more, and every day I change in it. One day, neither I nor this city will be recognizable as the place where Daniel lived.
Death is scary because death is change. Death is a no-going-back difference in the world that you can't argue and fight your way out of. So, if I keep Teddy and Boudica and Rocky in a plastic storage container, if I keep them in my emergency bag at the foot of my bed, if I love them like a time capsule, if I can keep them from falling apart.... then there they are. Unchanging. Safe. Alive.
***
But what's the point? I think about Winnie-the-Pooh, sitting in a glass box in the Schwartzman branch. I think of when he lived in Donnell, before that. He has outlived A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin. What's he doing now, but slowly falling apart?
And what the hell am I going to do with Teddy and Boudica and Rocky and the others? No one's going to erect a special exhibit and put them on display. "Stuffed Animals of Girl who Lost her Brother." Because the older I get, and the more tragedy the rest of the world goes through, the less significant my loss is. When I was six, my tragedy was unique. Now almost everyone I know has lost a parent, a sibling, a grandfather, an uncle, a best friend, a neighbor. I can't expect the world will stay the same for me if it doesn't stay stagnant for anyone else.
Some things are in my control. And until I can think of some alternative option, until I can grow out of whatever this rut is, until I can accept that one day there will be nothing in this world that was seen and touched and loved by Daniel... then I'm keeping them. All forty-something of them. Even the ones Daniel never touched. Because someone else loved those- a sibling, parent, friend. And as long as that someone is alive, then the stuffed animal is an insurance. A little piece of them. Something to look in the eye and hold on to.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Music First, Books Later
Music: listening
The most powerful childhood memory I have is a song.
My mother, who later gave me her love for reading, first gave me her love for music. I did not inherent her musical skill the way I did her passion for literacy, but before I could read or had interest in picking up a book, my mother played music for me. Looking back, there was music on, either for her benefit or for ours, at almost every point in the day. Certain classical pieces sound more like sentimental lullabies than classics because I listened to them so often as a child.
Every night my sister and I fell asleep listening to music. Sleep Sound in Jesus I must have heard every night for the first several years of my life. Later we had more options, including the Pachelbel Canon, which gave me nightmares for reasons that I can't fathom now.
Even the television we watched, was essentially music. And the movies we watched, though a very small selection, were heavily musical. I spent hours as a child listening to music in bed, while playing, while eating. When I think about it, I was exposed to a huge musical variety, perhaps more than other children might.
But this early, intense musical introduction did not birth anything musical in me. I am not musical. I do not play or sing. Music for me, as a child, was an event, an activity. Reading eventually took over as that activity in my life, and music took a step back.
Books: listening
I didn't learn to read independantly and proficently until the second grade. Compared to my mother, who taught herself, and my sister, who learned in Kindergarten, I was slow to start.
But I knew I loved reading before I learned how. Books began to take over music's role in my life was through audiobooks. The older I got, the more often my sister, brother, and I would fall asleep listening to an audiobook. From the New Testament, to a dramatized Christiana, to The Sign of the Beaver, I listened to stories before I could read them.
Once, while my reading level was still remedial, my sister read out loud to me the entirety of The Westing Game, because it was so good, and I was physically incapable of enjoying it myself. My father read aloud the entirety of The Hobbit to us. Even after I was capable of reading books like The Hobbit, reading aloud and audiobooks remained traditions. My dad read us Little House long after we'd read them independently, because it was fun, and good time spent together. My siblings and I fell asleep listening to books on tape for years, until ultimately, we opted for silence.
Books: reading
Being homeschooled, my only way to gauge my success was by comparing myself to my sister. My personal love for reading grew slowly. Trying desperately to keep up with an older and smarter sister kept reading from being joyful for a time. I would lie about my reading level, and force my way through books I didn't really understand just to say that I'd read them. Although the competitive attitude kept me fighting, it also kept me reading. By the time I was in third or fourth grade, everything had evened out.
I read quickly, regularly, and for fun. Every morning, through till ninth grade, I started my school day with reading. My mother would assign me a list of any number of challenging books, and every day I'd read for 45 minutes to an hour. She wanted us to love reading, so she gave us the space we needed to learn to love it. Once, while reading Rebecca, all other school was canceled for the day, and I read for two days straight till I finished.
In a Liberal Arts heavy house, I also was assigned daily reading for History and English. My mother assigned me The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid in ninth grade in a push that got me over the last barriers. By now I can't think of anything I can't read or wouldn't be willing to try.
Books: lifestyle
It's easy to get sentimental about reading as a skill. It's easy to pat yourself on the back for all the books you read. It's easy to feel a little superior when in conversation with someone who you just know isn't a "real reader." But I think that sort of behavior is stupid, and probably fundamentally wrong.
I'm not particularly proud of my skill or the shelves of books I own, but it does make me incredibly happy. Reading is not an art form. It's a form of entertainment. Just as I lay back and listened to music when I'm bored, just as I turn on the tv for two hours of straight Fox sitcoms on Tuesday, just as I go to the movies, just as someone (not me) might play a video game. Reading is a form of entertainment.
Even if you're using it as a form of education, or even if it does improve vocabulary...
Reading is not writing or drawing or singing. You're not creating anything new. And I think a lot of people might mistake reading for art. It's really not. It's fun or it's educational or it's both. But it's not some art form and it's not something that you need to necessarily be proud of.
The skill and the passion I have for reading is something I will forever keep. Out of every childhood experience, it is the one that has helped me most as an adult. And it's a skill I will always, always be grateful to have. Looking back, it is something that was unique to my childhood and my upbringing.
But that being said. I read because I love it, because my mother taught me how to love it, because I was raised to set time aside to appreciate stories, in whatever form that might be.
The most powerful childhood memory I have is a song.
My mother, who later gave me her love for reading, first gave me her love for music. I did not inherent her musical skill the way I did her passion for literacy, but before I could read or had interest in picking up a book, my mother played music for me. Looking back, there was music on, either for her benefit or for ours, at almost every point in the day. Certain classical pieces sound more like sentimental lullabies than classics because I listened to them so often as a child.
Every night my sister and I fell asleep listening to music. Sleep Sound in Jesus I must have heard every night for the first several years of my life. Later we had more options, including the Pachelbel Canon, which gave me nightmares for reasons that I can't fathom now.
Even the television we watched, was essentially music. And the movies we watched, though a very small selection, were heavily musical. I spent hours as a child listening to music in bed, while playing, while eating. When I think about it, I was exposed to a huge musical variety, perhaps more than other children might.
But this early, intense musical introduction did not birth anything musical in me. I am not musical. I do not play or sing. Music for me, as a child, was an event, an activity. Reading eventually took over as that activity in my life, and music took a step back.
Books: listening
I didn't learn to read independantly and proficently until the second grade. Compared to my mother, who taught herself, and my sister, who learned in Kindergarten, I was slow to start.
But I knew I loved reading before I learned how. Books began to take over music's role in my life was through audiobooks. The older I got, the more often my sister, brother, and I would fall asleep listening to an audiobook. From the New Testament, to a dramatized Christiana, to The Sign of the Beaver, I listened to stories before I could read them.
Once, while my reading level was still remedial, my sister read out loud to me the entirety of The Westing Game, because it was so good, and I was physically incapable of enjoying it myself. My father read aloud the entirety of The Hobbit to us. Even after I was capable of reading books like The Hobbit, reading aloud and audiobooks remained traditions. My dad read us Little House long after we'd read them independently, because it was fun, and good time spent together. My siblings and I fell asleep listening to books on tape for years, until ultimately, we opted for silence.
Books: reading
Being homeschooled, my only way to gauge my success was by comparing myself to my sister. My personal love for reading grew slowly. Trying desperately to keep up with an older and smarter sister kept reading from being joyful for a time. I would lie about my reading level, and force my way through books I didn't really understand just to say that I'd read them. Although the competitive attitude kept me fighting, it also kept me reading. By the time I was in third or fourth grade, everything had evened out.
I read quickly, regularly, and for fun. Every morning, through till ninth grade, I started my school day with reading. My mother would assign me a list of any number of challenging books, and every day I'd read for 45 minutes to an hour. She wanted us to love reading, so she gave us the space we needed to learn to love it. Once, while reading Rebecca, all other school was canceled for the day, and I read for two days straight till I finished.
In a Liberal Arts heavy house, I also was assigned daily reading for History and English. My mother assigned me The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid in ninth grade in a push that got me over the last barriers. By now I can't think of anything I can't read or wouldn't be willing to try.
Books: lifestyle
It's easy to get sentimental about reading as a skill. It's easy to pat yourself on the back for all the books you read. It's easy to feel a little superior when in conversation with someone who you just know isn't a "real reader." But I think that sort of behavior is stupid, and probably fundamentally wrong.
I'm not particularly proud of my skill or the shelves of books I own, but it does make me incredibly happy. Reading is not an art form. It's a form of entertainment. Just as I lay back and listened to music when I'm bored, just as I turn on the tv for two hours of straight Fox sitcoms on Tuesday, just as I go to the movies, just as someone (not me) might play a video game. Reading is a form of entertainment.
Even if you're using it as a form of education, or even if it does improve vocabulary...
Reading is not writing or drawing or singing. You're not creating anything new. And I think a lot of people might mistake reading for art. It's really not. It's fun or it's educational or it's both. But it's not some art form and it's not something that you need to necessarily be proud of.
The skill and the passion I have for reading is something I will forever keep. Out of every childhood experience, it is the one that has helped me most as an adult. And it's a skill I will always, always be grateful to have. Looking back, it is something that was unique to my childhood and my upbringing.
But that being said. I read because I love it, because my mother taught me how to love it, because I was raised to set time aside to appreciate stories, in whatever form that might be.
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