The Recording Angel outside the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville TN. Sculpted as one of the nine muses who inspire humans to create works of art. Artist: Audrey Flack, 2006.
It feels like I was always a reader. Of course, I wasn’t. Like many my age, I learned to read in First Grade of elementary school. Before I read, I made up stories for my dolls, either paper or plastic, to enact. “Let’s Make Believe that…” was the beginning if I were interacting with another. Playing school with my older sister wasn’t really playing. I was always the student; she was always the teacher. And I was always in trouble. When I finally went to school, I was only in trouble once. The class clown in second grade told me to pull his chair away from the desk. Then he pretended to fall to the floor. I was surprised. Everyone laughed. But The Teacher. She would not listen to my explanation, and the the clown just grinned like a frog who had just swallowed the fattest fly.
After I learned to read, I found stories to escape into. I became one with the story. Once, during reading time at school, I could hear kids out on the playground and wondered why the principal had let them out in the bitter cold. The boy in my book was lost in a snowstorm but the reality outside the classroom was warm sunshine.
In the summer I would walk to the public library for a new stack of books every two weeks. I am surprised that my over-protective mother let me walk alone that far. I suspect it was almost a mile. I imagined that my arms were stretched out from the load of books but I continued to check out the maximum number. After elementary school, I had a baby sister to enjoy, so reading was limited. In high school, I worked one class period a day in the Library. Oh, how I love the organization and rigor of a trained librarian. And she introduced me to the finest stories.
Recently, I found an old jewelry box with my old treasures inside. Along with a few pieces of costume jewelry were my library cards from all the cities we lived in when Mike was in the Navy.
“Reading without reflection is like eating without digestion.” – Edmund Burke
andrea100days 