Before I even understood them, I was fascinated by written words. I did not know the names of the individual letters, nor the sounds of any of them were meant to make, but I knew that whenever these figures were strung together in particular combinations, they represented communication. I knew that one person could set down a series of these figures which another person could look at later….and understand. It was magic, and I wanted to know how to do it.
They tell me I was speaking in complete sentences by the age of twenty-two months. They tell me I would ask to have new words, long words, complex words repeated until I had learned them for myself. They tell me I would ask the name of everything I saw and ask the meaning of every word I heard. I must have been particularly insistent (read: annoying) about my desire to learn this form of magic, because I was taught to read when I was four years old (I would be prepared to bet it was so my mother could have some respite from my endless questions and my unceasing requests to be read to) and they tell me that, once I had been taught to read, I also wanted to know “how do you spell that?” They tell me I announced, at the age of five, “What an extraordinary day I’ve had!” They tell me (and I well remember) that at the age of six I announced “When I grow up, I’m going to be a writer!” Shortly after this pronouncement, our neighbour (an artist of considerable talent, prone to tragic bouts of depression and occasional self-mutilation...a perfectly fascinating man for a child to know!) made me the gift of a 1928 Underwood typewriter. “If you’re going to be a writer,” he told me, “you’re going to need a writer’s tools.” At about the same time, my grandparents gave me a set of encyclopaedias which had been published before my father was born. They fed my addiction. My obsession with words grew, quite naturally, into an obsession with books.
I read everything I could get my hands on. When there were no stories left to read, I read the dictionary, studying language origins and root words, looking up the definition of words within definitions, and flipping to every “see also:”, using pronunciation guides to figure out how to wrap my tongue around polysyllabic words with seemingly too few vowels or an excess of consonants. I was positively beside myself when I discovered a thesaurus. The rules of phonics intrigued me, especially the exceptions to the rules, which appealed to my abstract sensibilities.
The library my mother used to take me to was one of those beautiful, nineteenth-century stone creations with hardwood floors buffed to a high shine, and ceilings that stopped somewhere just short of the sky. It smelled gloriously of floor wax and wood polish and books. On hundreds of dark shelves stood thousands of books—new books with colourful jackets and crisp pages, old books with gold-stamped leather covers and heavy linen pages cut with paper knives; there were thin volumes to fit easily in one hand and massive tomes which had to be heaved onto one of the elaborately carved tables for inspection. I would sometimes (out of sight of the severely disapproving, birdish librarian who wore her spectacles on a beaded chain and who never put her arms into her cardigan, but wore it over her shoulders with the top button fastened under her wattled chin) reverently extracted one of the greatly worn books from a shelf, held it to my ear as I opened it, hearing the arthritic complaint of the spine. I would fan the pages carefully, bathing my face in wafts of its’ cool, musty scent before burying my nose in the book, smelling dust and paper and ancient ink, almost believing (and fervently wishing) I could draw the story into myself. In a carpeted and brightly lit room in the basement, the children’s books waited in bright rows on white shelves. My favourite (borrowed at least a dozen times) was an alphabet book which began, “A—acrobats eating asparagus…” Once home with my armload of treasure, I would hurry to my room and throw myself across the bed to lie belly-down under the window, reading. And reading. And reading. An adult of whom I was not particularly fond once shook her head at me—the child with her nose buried in yet another book—chiding, “You’re going to ruin your eyesight with all that reading!” I worried about that for a while, until I discovered the story of Louis Braille in one of my encyclopaedias. I felt reassured knowing that not even ruining my eyesight to the point of blindness could stop me from reading.
When I was small, we had no television. Most of the people my parents knew lived in television-free homes, as well, but however many toys and puzzles and games there were, I was always drawn to the books. I learned more about some people from their bookshelves than I did from conversations with them (or from eavesdropping on my parents’ conversations with them). I still feel uncomfortable in homes where there is no evidence of reading material. My own bookshelf residents (there are books in absolutely every room in our house) have been grouped according to subject, in an arrangement loosely based on the Dewey Decimal Classification System. The shelves are full—overfull—and I have boxes of books stored away in the basement. I need more shelves. My husband says I need fewer books. I offered to make a trade—I would reduce the number of books I harbour (“After all, how may books can you read all at once and do you ever actually LOOK at most of them?”) if he would reduce the number of vintage wood planes he has gathered (“After all, what do you actually USE them for? Don’t you have two routers?”).
We are currently in a position of stalemate.
Though he does not share my passion for the written word, my husband does pander to it. On gift-giving occasions, I almost always receive a certificate from one of my favourite book stores. Other people give me these, as well (My favourite people!), and I hoard them away in a Very Safe Place until it is Just The Right Time. There is a tremendous thrill in walking through the doors, knowing I can have any book which catches my eye, any book which feels right in my hand, any book whose prose fills my mouth with the round resonance of its’ vowels or strikes my tongue with the staccato sharpness of its’ consonants. My family knows that once I enter the temple of books, I will be lost to them for an indefinite period. One of my children once resorted to lying (tugging on my coat and entreating, “Mum! Dad just answered the cell phone and he says we have to leave right now!” The cell phone was, at that moment, in my own pocket) in an attempt to prise me from a display of out-of-print books.
Once, for no reason at all, my husband bought a book he “knew I would love”. I don’t remember much of the plot, but the cover is embossed with medallions and scallops and scrolling which feels marvellous under my fingers—a tactile delight! He’s right, I do love it.
He once made a four hundred kilometre trip to an antique shop in order to surprise me with a century old edition of a favourite Mark Twain volume (how wonderful is that?). He may not share my passion, he may not understand it, but he encourages it and, it seems, has resigned himself to living with it.
My latest favourite quote reads, “The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.” Quite so. But let me have a try at them all, anyway.
They tell me I was speaking in complete sentences by the age of twenty-two months. They tell me I would ask to have new words, long words, complex words repeated until I had learned them for myself. They tell me I would ask the name of everything I saw and ask the meaning of every word I heard. I must have been particularly insistent (read: annoying) about my desire to learn this form of magic, because I was taught to read when I was four years old (I would be prepared to bet it was so my mother could have some respite from my endless questions and my unceasing requests to be read to) and they tell me that, once I had been taught to read, I also wanted to know “how do you spell that?” They tell me I announced, at the age of five, “What an extraordinary day I’ve had!” They tell me (and I well remember) that at the age of six I announced “When I grow up, I’m going to be a writer!” Shortly after this pronouncement, our neighbour (an artist of considerable talent, prone to tragic bouts of depression and occasional self-mutilation...a perfectly fascinating man for a child to know!) made me the gift of a 1928 Underwood typewriter. “If you’re going to be a writer,” he told me, “you’re going to need a writer’s tools.” At about the same time, my grandparents gave me a set of encyclopaedias which had been published before my father was born. They fed my addiction. My obsession with words grew, quite naturally, into an obsession with books.
I read everything I could get my hands on. When there were no stories left to read, I read the dictionary, studying language origins and root words, looking up the definition of words within definitions, and flipping to every “see also:”, using pronunciation guides to figure out how to wrap my tongue around polysyllabic words with seemingly too few vowels or an excess of consonants. I was positively beside myself when I discovered a thesaurus. The rules of phonics intrigued me, especially the exceptions to the rules, which appealed to my abstract sensibilities.
The library my mother used to take me to was one of those beautiful, nineteenth-century stone creations with hardwood floors buffed to a high shine, and ceilings that stopped somewhere just short of the sky. It smelled gloriously of floor wax and wood polish and books. On hundreds of dark shelves stood thousands of books—new books with colourful jackets and crisp pages, old books with gold-stamped leather covers and heavy linen pages cut with paper knives; there were thin volumes to fit easily in one hand and massive tomes which had to be heaved onto one of the elaborately carved tables for inspection. I would sometimes (out of sight of the severely disapproving, birdish librarian who wore her spectacles on a beaded chain and who never put her arms into her cardigan, but wore it over her shoulders with the top button fastened under her wattled chin) reverently extracted one of the greatly worn books from a shelf, held it to my ear as I opened it, hearing the arthritic complaint of the spine. I would fan the pages carefully, bathing my face in wafts of its’ cool, musty scent before burying my nose in the book, smelling dust and paper and ancient ink, almost believing (and fervently wishing) I could draw the story into myself. In a carpeted and brightly lit room in the basement, the children’s books waited in bright rows on white shelves. My favourite (borrowed at least a dozen times) was an alphabet book which began, “A—acrobats eating asparagus…” Once home with my armload of treasure, I would hurry to my room and throw myself across the bed to lie belly-down under the window, reading. And reading. And reading. An adult of whom I was not particularly fond once shook her head at me—the child with her nose buried in yet another book—chiding, “You’re going to ruin your eyesight with all that reading!” I worried about that for a while, until I discovered the story of Louis Braille in one of my encyclopaedias. I felt reassured knowing that not even ruining my eyesight to the point of blindness could stop me from reading.
When I was small, we had no television. Most of the people my parents knew lived in television-free homes, as well, but however many toys and puzzles and games there were, I was always drawn to the books. I learned more about some people from their bookshelves than I did from conversations with them (or from eavesdropping on my parents’ conversations with them). I still feel uncomfortable in homes where there is no evidence of reading material. My own bookshelf residents (there are books in absolutely every room in our house) have been grouped according to subject, in an arrangement loosely based on the Dewey Decimal Classification System. The shelves are full—overfull—and I have boxes of books stored away in the basement. I need more shelves. My husband says I need fewer books. I offered to make a trade—I would reduce the number of books I harbour (“After all, how may books can you read all at once and do you ever actually LOOK at most of them?”) if he would reduce the number of vintage wood planes he has gathered (“After all, what do you actually USE them for? Don’t you have two routers?”).
We are currently in a position of stalemate.
Though he does not share my passion for the written word, my husband does pander to it. On gift-giving occasions, I almost always receive a certificate from one of my favourite book stores. Other people give me these, as well (My favourite people!), and I hoard them away in a Very Safe Place until it is Just The Right Time. There is a tremendous thrill in walking through the doors, knowing I can have any book which catches my eye, any book which feels right in my hand, any book whose prose fills my mouth with the round resonance of its’ vowels or strikes my tongue with the staccato sharpness of its’ consonants. My family knows that once I enter the temple of books, I will be lost to them for an indefinite period. One of my children once resorted to lying (tugging on my coat and entreating, “Mum! Dad just answered the cell phone and he says we have to leave right now!” The cell phone was, at that moment, in my own pocket) in an attempt to prise me from a display of out-of-print books.
Once, for no reason at all, my husband bought a book he “knew I would love”. I don’t remember much of the plot, but the cover is embossed with medallions and scallops and scrolling which feels marvellous under my fingers—a tactile delight! He’s right, I do love it.
He once made a four hundred kilometre trip to an antique shop in order to surprise me with a century old edition of a favourite Mark Twain volume (how wonderful is that?). He may not share my passion, he may not understand it, but he encourages it and, it seems, has resigned himself to living with it.
My latest favourite quote reads, “The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.” Quite so. But let me have a try at them all, anyway.
4 comments:
Hello my dear friend. I haven't chatted with you in so long! Just popped by to let you know I was thinking about you and to let you know that I will be having an article published in the International Doula magazine! It's the second time so I am very thrilled. Drop by my blog and say hi!!!
It doesn't surprise me that you had such a love for words at such an early age. I share your love for books and can read the same one over and over. Hugs, my friend!
I hate to be a party pooper but, considering your love for reading and writing, I was surprised to find what I consider grammatical errors. I was curious as to whether there was a purposeful reason behind your capitalizing "Very Safe Place" and "Just The Right Time." You also wrote "its'" twice just below that, when referring to a book... wouldn't it just be "its?" And then the sentence in the paragraph below, that says "knew I would love" should have the period inside the quotes. Normally I wouldn't say a word about such things, because it seems no one knows how to read or write properly these days, but considering it's your passion, I was just surprised to see them.
Among the quilters I knew in childhood was the tradition of creating a humility square, a quilt block that was not quite perfect. Perhaps the seams did not quite meet, or perhaps the stitching was not quite even but, in some way, the block was flawed. This served as a reminder that only God is perfect. It is said that, for the same reason, rug makers in Persia would intentionally err in their tying - knotting a black thread where there ought to be a blue one, for example. I don't strive for perfection in my art, I aim to create beauty with words - to weave them together until they become something that has not existed before. Sometimes this is done in hope that a reader will be moved, yes, but most of the time I write because it makes me happy. Whether it makes others happy is not generally of consequence. The job of polishing and perfecting is left to my editor...her skills in that area exceed mine. When the piece is intended for publication, she smooths it out. When it is not, she doesn't, and the piece retains all the lumps, bumps, and gnarls it was born with. I am happy with this arrangement. :o)
The capitalisation of specific short phrases was intentional, and has a point - to place emphasis, however whimsical, on them. See the work of Alan Alexander Milne for samples of the same technique. Art, you see, takes many forms, and not all forms of art appeal to all people. .:shrug:. That is as it should be.
Yes, "its'" as I twice wrote it ought to have been "its"....but not "its?" as you suggested, and I ought to have enclosed the period inside the quotes....in fact, ought to have removed the quotes entirely or, even better, to have written "knew you would love." Errors abound in my work, April. I don't strive for perfection, but thank you for showing me where I could have given greater effort to reaching that goal. I apologise for surprising (and perhaps disappointing) you.
God bless.
Peace ~
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