Language is a spectacular aspect of living. Some psychologists believe that language is embedded within our genetics and that we are naturally inclined to learn and use it. I believe this, too. From an early age, I craved reading in the way that I craved running-like this incredible urge was bottled up inside that I couldn't yet release. I NEEDED it-there was an unexplored frontier in front of me blocked off by streams of yellow tape and I just ripped and ripped with the relentless determination of a small child. I remember sitting at my Grandmother's kitchen table once looking over the jumbled letters in a book of fairy tales. I complained that it was just so hard, that I would never get it. She explained the importance of patience and encouraged me to try harder. That's the only specific moment in my life I can remember not being able to read.
Throughout my childhood I read and read. As a socially awkward kid, it was an escape. It was friends. It was nourishment and it was dreams. I loved coming home from school and curling up in the reclining chair at my parents house with a hot cup of tea, oatmeal cookies and my book. To this day, I can feel the warmth of that room as my mom cooked dinner and my siblings played. Sadly, I don't read as many books as an adult, unless I happen to pick up something interesting in a bathroom or while perusing Barnes and Noble for the sake of Starbucks as a saving grace. Instead, I have become an internet junkie. Blogland, Wikipedia, the homepage...it's all great, except that I have begun to get the feeling that something has been lost. Something that wasn't interrupted by jpegs and advertisements. Something that took a deeper commitment.
Lately I find that I don't even read anything wholeheartedly. I just scan. Scan for the topic of interest. Skip to where it gets good. Scroll, click, forward, bookmark for later. My patience is gone. My time is no excuse. It's just the same time wasted on more searches, more selected input, more distraction. Why?
I remember being in the seventh grade and painting my nails every single night to match an outfit I had picked out to wear the next day. Some kids found this to be intriguing. Others dismissed my behavior with a short "you have too much time on your hands." I've always hated that phrase. Select words picked from a language and thrown together for the sake of making someone else seem less worthy in the most passively sarcastic of ways. As though watching television, or going out to the bar, or taking part in any other unproductive activities that are socially acceptable are better than spending the same amount of time doing something "petty" to make oneself happy.
My little one now needs to read. The frustration has begun and each day I am asked to spell out countless words for the letters she writes to both real and imaginary recipients. Sometimes I want to scream, but I remember the patience held by those before me and how important it was in helping this little girl learn. And so I spell-while I am getting dressed, while making lunch, while driving and while scanning my own world. And as she learns, I learn. As she sees, I see. Sometimes I think we are so caught up in advancing that we regress-perhaps this is why we are blessed with children and made to experience the rebirth of oneself that their own childhood truly brings.
Language is spectacular.
