[This week is National Library Week. What better time to share one of the first pieces I wrote while working on my book? Or to remind you of another post on the subject I made years ago?]
Over sixty years ago, I suddenly deciphered the words of my favorite Dr. Seuss book, Robert the Rose Horse, and boom, I was reading. I must have read Robert at least a thousand times: to myself, to my younger brothers, to anyone who would listen. When I revisited the story recently, I was reminded that my beloved Robert was a horse who’s a bit of an outcast thanks to his being different and misunderstood. Until his difference becomes just the thing everyone needs and he is transformed into a hero. It can’t be a coincidence that I was obsessed with this book. I was Robert’s human doppelganger: hapless and troublesome and incomprehensible.
Stories saved my life. Long before I could read, I’d begun telling myself stories that helped me survive the chaos and fear. Later I would tell myself stories that allowed me to keep a boyfriend, or stay in a job, or get out of bed in the morning. And later still I told myself stories that allowed me to sleepwalk through almost twenty-five years of marriage and childrearing.
Once I cracked the code, I was insatiable, devouring books indiscriminately. Within the year I was introduced to my first library, a small branch in a converted historic colonial not far from our house. I lived for those visits, where I followed the kindly librarian around to peruse her suggestions before choosing which treasures to borrow. When I invariably finished with my stash before it was time for the next visit, I’d rummage through the bookshelves in our den. So in addition to Nancy Drew and The Wizard of Oz, I was also ripping through Peyton Place and Ship of Fools. Or a volume or two of the World Book Encyclopedia.
This was not the best strategy for disguising my already well-documented otherness. In a family turbocharged by angry hyperactivity, my hobby was suspect, which I imagine was responsible for reading becoming both a lifelong obsession and a guilty pleasure. I can still feel the sting of when my father, normally my staunchest ally in the family, interrupted my rapture as I sat quietly curled up in an armchair with a book.
“There’s such a thing as reading too much, you know.” I looked up to find him shaking his head in mild disgust and walking away.
Even then, though, I knew on some level that the benefits outweighed the costs. Reading has been my Swiss Army knife of life enrichment; the multi-use tool that provided so many forms of salvation. The promise of escape into a parallel universe is a powerful lure when a scary big person is screaming in your face that they’re going to kick the shit out of you. Even when you’re reading a book whose content you don’t fully understand, there is solace in the quiet, beautiful arrangement of letters into words. Then there’s the illustration of other realities, of cherished children and happy families that, despite instilling a terrible yearning, also fueled the lifelong optimism that pushed me to persevere in the face of adversity. And access to the astounding range of knowledge available through reading was a lifeline in a climate where education and awareness were often deemed threatening. My secret discoveries, about how wide and exquisite the world could be, sustained me.
Reading was also instrumental in my healing and growth after my life blew up in my fifties. I read about childhood trauma and narcissistic personality disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. The insight and validation were gratifying despite the enormity of the pain. When my grief and rage over how I’d been treated (and at my acceptance of that treatment) threatened to crush me, I found comfort in books about self-compassion and self-care. And when I agonized over what to actually do to reverse how fucked up I was, how to replace the now wildly ineffective survival strategies I’d adopted as a toddler, I supplemented long-overdue therapy with books. As I had fifty years earlier, I read widely and indiscriminately: psychology, philosophy, poetry, prayers; anything that might prove illuminating or stimulate alternate, healthier thought patterns.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when, but after a while the tide began to turn. One day I realized that I no longer needed to listen to the stories that others would have me believe about myself; stories I’d mindlessly adopted and even embellished. And I began to be able to recognize when I was preparing to spin a tale that would allow me to avoid uncomfortable feelings. Perhaps most importantly, I no longer had a desire to create stories that would make a shit sandwich palatable. I’d learned, where my life was concerned, to prefer reality with all of its vicissitudes.
My love of stories and my profound gratitude for the companionship and rescue they provided in my childhood persist. As I have been throughout my life, wherever I’ve lived, I’m still a regular at the local library, hauling home armfuls of books weekly. I still love nothing more than a long session with a good book. The difference is that these days, instead of a numbing escape into relative safety, books are a conscious, joyful choice to explore the wonder and variety with which words can be used to teach, to entertain, and to heal. Those are the stories that I want to tell.