The Start of a Beautiful Friendship

My father was a professor at South Suburban Community College and as any teacher will attest, he brought home his work.

I saw him most evenings sitting at  the dining room table reading student essays, being denied the luxury of office space by his five children. He sat stern, upright, a figure leaning over the page. He read like a scientist analyzing, examining, and dissecting the language beneath his microscopic eye. His mind interpreting information then expelling commentary in the margins of the paper. Reading appeared a stressful task and one that exhausted him. His limit of ten to twelve essays forced him to stop as if to catch his breathe. This image of him at the dining room table was quite different from the image of him reading a novel or book while sitting on the couch in our living room. These moments showed a man composed, the tension gone from his face as he held the book in hand, his eyes soft, nonjudgmental. It was an act of unconditional acceptance and joy. It was an exercise of the imagination. It occurred to me then that reading was a two faced coin.

The act of reading began with my mother reading to me. To her, imagination was godlike. Reading was an exercise of the imagination into knowledge. I traveled to places quite different from my own. Meeting characters quite different from myself and learning it was a blessed experience. My mother’s voice narrated the early stages of my reading. Her uncanniness at pitches and cadences at just the right moments brought to life colorful and magical characters and locations. Her voice took me on journeys I’d never have known possible. During the season of the fourth grade one book ignited in me this personal relationship with reading. The Last of The Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Edwards challenged my mind’s eye and like my father before, I found myself leaning into the page, leaning over the page, not in a state of enervation, but in a desire for wonderment and discovery. Sentences became bridges to traverse, words became parachutes on which to hang, and paragraphs became mountains to scale. I was magically transported into settings and worlds so vastly different and yet so familiar. Reading independently was an act of maturity and growth, but eventually, I realized I miss the sound of my mother’s voice secretly wishing for her to read to me, but knowing I was far too old for such a childish endeavor. My mother was no longer the narrator and this responsibility was turned over to another in whichever novel I was reading. I learned quickly, they never sounded as good as my mother. It was my entry into my imagination. I thank my mother for this. And I thank my father for the work ethic.

I’m inspired walking through the narrative woods of storytelling. My appreciation for writing and the craft of storytelling grew and I began to understand the interwoven relationship between reading and writing, the two pillars of literacy. I make certain to keep my parents as reading referees. A balance must be maintained in my habit of reading. If a work is too demanding, I step upon the academic path, slow down, cautious of what’s beyond the next bend. I think more critically. If the reading is accessible, I run through it wildly, steered by my imagination, uninhibited by what lurks beyond the next bend.

I suppose like any relationship worth committing to, one must evolve with its evitable change if it’s to nurture one’s soul. My childhood copy of The Last of The Really Great Whangdoodles is displayed on my bureau as a reminder why I fell in love with reading in the first place. Although, I refuse to reread it, in fear of it losing its nostalgia.