December 11, 2001
Writer's Block
I remember what made me happiest as a child. I loved going to the grocery store with my parents, my brother jumping up and down and jabbering and five minutes away from knocking over a display, being able to cast one pleading look at my mother, and without words, heading off to look at the books.
I'm sure the supply of books at Kroger's was meager, but to me it would suffice. I would stare lovingly at the covers of each precious tome, opening them, reading the inside jacket and perhaps the first few pages.
This joy was parallel with my weekly trip to the library, where I would climb up onto one of the small children's stools and eye the titles on the top shelf. I don't remember myself being uncommonly bright as a child, nor am I anything special now, but I was an avid reader. I took on fifth and sixth grade books when I was in the third grade. I would go on quests to find the fattest book I could and carry it home with me, my small chest swollen with pride. I would read a Cam Jansen or an American Girl in an evening. My grandmother compelled me to read A Secret Garden and Heidi. I followed suit with Sara Crewe, Anne of Green Gables.
Sometimes my mom would buy me a book when she was out, something silly, something cheap. I still have most of those, my name written inside and maybe a Lisa Frank sticker for good measure. I remember once she bought me a whole armload of Nancy Drew and Pippy Longstocking at a yard sale.
Justin and I used to record ourselves on the tape recorder I got for my ninth birthday. We would sing or fight with eachother or pretend we were radio announcers, but when he was not there (or, moreover, when I could get rid of him), I would record books. I would simply pick something out and read it outloud to the tape recorder, somtimes with voices, sometimes not.
I wish I could find those tapes.
I am inspired tonight because of who I used to be, I wonder why I never imagined then that I could create the thing it was I loved most. I wish I could say that I knew from birth that I wanted to be a writer. But I didn't. I wrote my first 'novel' when I was in the seventh grade. But even then, I did it to entertain one of my teachers, to entertain myself and Kelsi. I would fall madly in love with music and a band in ninth grade, and begin to pen my dreams into the first of the twenty-six notebooks that cushion the underneath of my bed. BUt still not then.
I think it was about three months ago.
astera at argh