On Reading

"Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on Earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world..." - Anne Lamott

I can't recall the first book I ever read, but I can recall the first books I ever received. I was six, living in California, and one day - which started out as any other - I remember two boxes arriving to our house. This was a pre-Amazonian era when receiving packages was still rare and thrilling. One box housed a collection of Dr. Seuss works and in the other, the Alice in Bibleland series by author Alice Joyce Davidson - a collection of stories about a little girl named Alice who journeys through the bible to see firsthand the accounts within. The point is not whether I was being transported to Whoville or Jerusalem, but that I was being transported at all. This notion that I could physically exist in one place but mentally explore another was transformative. Now, as an adult - this phenomenon strikes multiple times a day but in a more fatigue-driven way. But that moment in my life revealed the power of the written word to me. I was so excited about each word and each neighboring image that reinforced it. Being told stories made me want to tell stories, too. I think the reason I wanted to become an educator was watching my teachers hold a book during story time with one hand - you know, their thumb and pinky working in tandem to keep the book open while three fingers worked behind-the-scenes to prop it upright - their other hand free to motion with or turn pages when necessary. Everything about story-telling enthralled me.

My early relationship with reading was one of pure joy, excitement, and curiosity. I didn't realize it was also helping me remember to play and pray. Dr. Seuss reminded me that the world is colorful, wonderful, and yes, a little bit strange. Alice reminded me that words can come alive, and through the bible, taught me so many of the basic tenets that guided me in my young life and are still applicable today: The Golden Rule, to apologize when I was wrong, to forgive others when they were wrong, and to help others whenever I could. These principles, which I accumulated from stories on a page, taught me the power of paying attention - not just in books - but in life. The details of a sunset, the feelings I encountered in the course of my day - I may have missed these things had a detail-oriented author not made me acutely aware through the pleasure of reading.

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As I grew older, the complexities of my life were often reflected on the pages of books I would come across. We were growing up together; I found solace in this. At the age of twelve, my family and I were at the Feather River in Oroville, California - a common and wish-I-could-go-back-to-it past-time of ours. We'd get a pizza, explore the river, the dam, and the fish hatchery. One particular time, though, we popped into a thrift store by the river and that event would set in motion a deep passion for writing I've always held onto. That day, I began my journey from reading to writing - this Tabithian-Wardrobe-esque path to a world I've inhabited since. For just a quarter, I purchased Nicholas Sparks's novel, The Notebook. I had never heard of Sparks and was only drawn to the cover and the I-could carry-this-in-my-back-pocket size of the weathered paperback. Sparks's manuscript, I later learned, was approximately 80,000 words and was his first-ever published novel. I enjoyed the story - it's simplicity, it's imagery, and how I'd never been manipulated to think about these illnesses, diseases, or that final season of one's life before. It was world-building in such a different way than Dr. Seuss's fantastical funderland because it was the same world I occupied and these people could be any couple strolling down the street and I'd have no idea. Though less colorful, the world we occupy is supremely real and as it turns out, equally eccentric. But the novel, along with countless others, made me privy to so many elements of humanity I'd have been ignorant of otherwise. While too much information can be a bad thing, I found these snippets into others' trials and triumphs made me compassionate and, as an author, it made me creative.

The following year, on my sixteenth birthday, I was gifted The Lord of the Rings by my older brother. On the inside cover, he'd written, "To Jen on Christmas of 2002. I hope you enjoy these books even half as much as I did."

I did.

Upon this fantastical introduction to Tolkien, my life changed - again. I realized the value of nature as both motivation to write and as a subject to include. The Lord of the Rings, one of Tolkien's most notable works, made concrete to me the sheer power of allegory, metaphor, description, and all the motifs of humanity encompassed in a well-told tale: love, loss, sacrifice, hope, temptation, redemption, responsibility, community, hopelessness, growth, humor, pain - they are all there for the reader to connect with, respond to, learn from, aspire to, and become inspired by. Tolkien taught me the power of context - when considering his position as a writer and seeing that unfold in surprising ways in the form of text on a page made me realize that it was not just about story-telling or the tenets learned from a story, but it was also an operation of catharsis; a way of purging and processing - all while producing and creating. It is a beautiful alchemic conversion of pain and experience to this tangible matter that has the potential to rescue someone else.

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My relationship with reading only deepened from there because in college, my exposure become exponential compared to what I could get my hands on in my youth. It was in college that I realized I didn't like nor did I have to like all books or authors. I realized there was content I didn't necessarily want exposure to - I learned my rights as a reader. I retained the right to disagree with authors, to disapprove of their styles, their messages - their intentions. I also grew in the sense that I had to retract former opinions made out of ignorance or rebellion - works I had never really attempted but had somehow formed opinions on; my own comedy of errors as it were. Growing up involves admitting you are wrong sometimes. All that to say, the relationship was becoming two-sided. I was just not a reader; I was a participant. Through written responses, classroom discussions, even meeting some of my beloved authors or visiting their hometowns, we were forging a deeper connection - the writer and me. Reading had left the page and materialized in my world in a very concrete way. Upon visiting the Monterey Canning Co. in Monterey, CA, which inspired Steinbeck's Cannery Row, his words seemed to come more alive as I imagined the community of factory workers inside and Steinbeck's famous quote: "You can't be a community of one."

As an inhabitant of countless literary communities, I agree with John. I am better for having occupied Middle Earth, Wonderland, Baker Street, and Montreuil-sur-Mer. I would not be who I am today without the characters - both real and of fiction - whom I have sojourned with over the years; I anxiously await other undiscovered worlds that are constantly unfolding on those little. paper. rectangles. Where will you go today and who will you be when you return?

-Jennifer