LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Weekend Beach Bum: The Power of the Page |
by Eric Morrison |
When all is said and done, nothing makes me happier than a good book. Call me a bore, a nerd, an anti-social, introverted esoteric with his hands in a book and his head in the clouds, but I love to read. "What are you doing tonight?" my friend inquires, his voice lapping over the telephone line thick with the rambunctious excitement of an anticipated night on the town. "I think I'll just stay in tonight. I want to finish the book I'm reading, and there's another one I want to get started on." My friend sighs with mock contentment and not a little disdain, discerning from my voice that I fully intend to dine with Dickens and sleep with Sandburg. "Have a good night," he almost chides. "You too," I smile. It could be my mother's fault. I didn't want to give up the baby bottle, so she weaned me onto books. I don't recall my mother ever perusing War and Peace, but the living room end tables of my childhood home boasted more than enough lexical libations for my mind: Reader's Digest, local newspapers, Field & Stream, (my father's humble contribution to the Morrison library), True Story, True Confessions, and True Secrets. For anyone who remembers those "women's magazines" of the 70s and 80s, the inclusion of the word true in the title was nothing if not blatantly misleading. But, go figure, they were my favorites, and I read them and painted my fingernails almost everyday before my mother returned home from work. (That much is true.) Not even TV Guide was safe from my eclectic claws. In my mind, a simple sitcom description like, "Janet and Chrissy try desperately to help Jack pass his chef's exam," or, "Lucy and the Mertzes try to wheedle their way into Ricky's new nightclub act," sparked fanciful fun and indelible images. The ability of words to render reality and fulfill fantasy crammed my head with notions and my heart with glee. I was hooked. Before long, my literary tastes began to mature, and I was a diligent member of the Woodbridge Basics School monthly reader's program. If you read a certain number of books per month, you won a prize. The prizes usually sucked eggsa book warmer hand-knitted by old Mrs. Jones, a flimsy gift certificate for a box of tasteless Ronald McDonald cookies. As if I weren't crushed enough by my failure, the month I actually failed to complete the required number of books, was the month they gave out some really neat prize that actually came from a store. Phooey. From my earliest memory, an author's ethereal hands could reach out from between the typeset lines and touch my heart. In my adulthood, repression of childhood memories has taken hold firmly, but I still remember the first time I cried at the end of a book. I had chosen Disney's Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar for my current selection. I used to read to my mother every night after dinner while she washed the dishes, and, if I couldn't quite finish, I'd sit outside the bathroom and finish the story while she bathed. With Charlie, I knew what was coming. I felt it coming. Even in my pre-adolescent heart, I knew Charlie could not stay with creatures not like him. He must learn to let go, love at a distance, and explore his own needs and desires. My mother's back was to me, her hands soaking in suds. At the last word, my mother sensed the floodgates of my eyes opening. "Are you going to cry?" she queried. "No, I'm fine," I boasted. I made it as far as my bedroom before I came running back to my mother like my head was on fire, flailing my arms, bellowing, and weeping. I was a sensitive child. I was never more in my element than when I attended my school's regular book fairs. For a few magical hours, I hovered around tempting bookshelves as high as the sky and as wide as any ocean. My spirit soared and my head swam. Those were the only times, as a child, when I was conscious of not caring where my parents were or what they were doing. They could be stuck in a torturous, inane conversation with my fourth grade teacher or the school janitor for all I cared. I was surrounded by thousands of stories leaping from the mouths of people and the jaws of animals, and I was never more content. I studied the feast laid out before my mind's eye, and I carefully selected from the overwhelming catalog presented me. Tasseled, colorful bookmarks were nice, (especially if they pictured unicorns, another of my childhood fancies), stickers and posters were fun, but I always chose to exhaust my regular catalog allowance on books. Every time my latest book order came in, it was just like Christmas. Moving into high school, my literary tastes morphed once again. I remember loathing my first real novel, Great Expectations, sitting in my grandmother's smoky living room, wishing Dickens and his seemingly endless parade of characters dead. But my Scorpio determination and obsessive tendencies overtook my stubbornness, and I ended up loving Pip, Estella, Miss Havisham, and company as if they were my dearest friends. During my senior year, I discovered that nonfiction books could be quite informative, if not quite as imaginative. I was enrolled in college English classes during my junior and senior years, and I passed many fretful and titillating hours in the college library, wearing out the card catalog in search of the words homosexuality, gay, and genitalia. Some things I learned then, I now know to be untrue. Some things I still don't know now, I wish I had learned then. On the whole, my informal research left me feeling like a clinical case much more than a person, and the fear and guilt that racked my soul, as I read and after I returned home, were almost unbearable until my next visit. Today, I have an equal love affair with fiction and non-fiction, and I'm smart enough to read things that make me feel good about myself. Whenever I'm feeling lonely, I saunter into my study and revisit many shelves full of friends. I have friends who are female and male, white and black, gay and straight. I have friends who are divine and despicable, plucky and pitiable, audacious and arrogant, but they are never dull. They make me laugh, cry, scream, hurt, love, and hate. They make me put up walls around my soul and tear down barriers around my heart, but they rarely make me yawn. I would list a few of my favorite authors and books, but I've come to recognize the utter futility of such suggestions. No two children in a classroom pick the same favorite crayon, and no author's writings speak the same words of wisdom and pain and condolence to two people. Go find your own favorite author and your own favorite book. It might take a while, perhaps even a lifetime. Butthis happy reader can assure you the journey will be well worth it. Eric lives in Wilmington. He can be reached at eric.a.morrison@verizon.net. Send him a message, and he'll get back to you as soon as he puts his book down. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 01, February 1, 2002. |