Wondrous, lovely, tempting, treacherous little things.
For me it is. For me they are.
I started reading at the age of 4. I learned my alphabets fast. For a slow learner, that I picked up at a really weird pace. Quite alarming, if you think about it. For at that time, my peers, neighbours, family, siblings and friends, were picking up stones and blocks and play shooting games, or play castles -prince, princesses, dinosaurs, fishing, tiger, cat, dog, mermaid etc or simply swing and slide in the playground.
Me?
Let's go back in history.
I picked up children's book from the day I learned my alphabets. Yes, I was greedy. Knowing ABC wasn't enough, I need, as fast as possible, to know their uses. There's like that urge in me that says "Get a book, trust your insies, reading the book will enable you to learn alphabet faster than just memorizing them". I guess I do listen to my inner self since I was but a toddler. I would say infant, but please, at 4 years old? Toddler, not infant. Or maybe already a child. I was never good at memorizing. I knew that. How a kid would know? I can't exactly answer to that. My memory started to be real and true to me at the same time I know I can read, in which I recall the feelings and the thoughts that I have as a child. The scary part is, the knowledge that I have as a child was although not the very genius-like or some sort, but it made a bluff out of the phrase "innocence". Enough straying, although a lot of people deemed me smart, I know, even as a child, that I'm not. I trained my mind to be alert, but I played dumb, I lowered expectation, then I exceed them. So yeah, I know how to plan a surprise. So yeah, I'm somewhat cunning. But I don't have a high IQ or a genius. I take my time with many things. I'm just greedy for words. That's why reading is the fastest thing that ever happened to me.I outgrew children's book fast. When I started classics (which was maybe "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett), I got bored of children's book. Not the tales. I still, from time to time, enjoy children's book. Some of them are funny and insightful. I just hated the language. To me who reads ahead of age, it's somehow insulting to read a book that felt like it's downgrading me. Of course, now I know I was wrong. A book is a book. The content will bring you much more. Language is how the author wants to portray it. I was simply an egoist. AND arrogant. So then I started reading pre-teen books, then I moved on and on.
Why do these even matters?
It does. A great deal.
To me at least.
Maybe, to some people a picture contains a thousand memories. I love pictures, paintings, sketches, photos, sculptures and all those. I like to be pampered by the arts. I was a rough child, but I guess I didn't really like being treated as one. I'm not so sure.What I know for sure is that although I love all those extreme sports, or trekking, and mud and dirt, I do, love arts and poetry, and words. So I can be rough all I like, but in the world of words, I love being pampered.
Every year, I'll pick up a book. Every month, every week. Every day. It can be as simple as a notebook, or an exercise pad that contains only scribbles of things that I learned in class. For me, a paper and pen is all that it takes to express myself. Well, in my case, to be more accurate, it's a surface and a tool that can make a mark on it. I expressed my words on the bark of a tree, on leaves, on the wall, sewn on a fabric, stitched on someone's clothes. Of course, most of the time, on paper. Therefore, I read everything. Mind you, don't ever leave a diary in front of me. I maybe excellent with keeping a secret, but I'm never good at not reading. Chances are, I'll read them. Or I read.
Words are memories to me. I am bad at remembering names and faces. But I don't forget the feeling. I still remember the days my grandfather taught me alphabet and I hurried him to teach me sentences and their structures. I remembered working hard through the exercises, even though I was never serious about anything else, let alone be diligent in doing anything. With books however, I was head over heels. I remember when Huninis bought my sister a book about a family of monkeys and I demanded one too. But she wouldn't let me for she didn't know that I could read. I made a point to read my sister's book in front of her, loudly. While my sister only cared for the pictures in the book and only read it once, I knew the story by heart and could re-tell the story without looking at the book. Huninis gave up and bought me a book about a tiger, and a giraffe (or was it a zebra?). I didn't like the book at all. The words were too simple for me, and the monkey story was far more interesting. But it was mine. My first ever owned book. And until now, I'll never forget the pride that I have of owning it, and the happiness I felt for actually being bought something that I liked. I was happy and Huninis was the world to me for that.
At 5, I went to kindergarten. There, they have a tight schedule where if you don't follow, you'll get extra homework as punishment. We have class, meal, playtime, library, and blocks. I hated extra homework. I love to write, mind you, love it. Also love drawing. Though I'm good with maths, I'm not too fond of it, it's stoic and emotionless. Although if it's not for calculating, maths can be a great coded expression, so yeah, I don't hate it. But I hated and hate to write alphabets repetitively, or any of those tale-less homework. So I followed the schedule. My favourite time was library and playtime. Library was because everyone would be either listening to the teacher reading or just pick up your own book and read. I usually listened to the teacher, because tales are fascinating when it's told by adults which seemingly have experienced it. Though of course, reality is that they either read it or heard the twisted tale of it from others, interpret it somehow inaccurately and then tell them to someone else. That's how myth and legends exists after all. Playtime on the other hand, are when we're free to do what we like. To most kids, it shouts "Playground!!", but to me, playtime whispers "come back to the wonderful yours only world", and that is, the library. No one goes there during playtime. So I went, sit up in one corner and starts reading anything on shelves. It is here that I discover Gulliver's Travel by Jonathan Swift. It was beautiful. I didn't exactly knew what the whole story was about until I reread them years later, but I remember what I felt when I read it first. It was like being absorbed in another world and it makes me see the beauty in every little things. Trust me when I said I was arrogant and egoistical. I was a bit taller than most at that time, and I found shorter people 'ugly' even though some actually have good looks. I surprised even the teachers when there's a time during brunch, a pair of siblings (whom people thought were my friends, whom themselves thought were my friends) bullied the short guy by taking his food and say names, I stood up. The teachers, wary, for they know how brutal I can be, thought for certain that I was going to join in and made it worse. At least that's what I interpreted from the looks on their faces. I got up, went to the short boy (although, I still remember, I felt guiltily disgusted because I still think he's ugly at that time - Hey, you don't change perspective in a single day!) and gave him my food since I haven't touch them. He simply stared. I guess I was, in a way, demanding. When he stared, I got annoyed, and forced him to take it. He took it reluctantly while the siblings say names to me. I simply glared (which didn't really work; my glare is not as effective as Tazia's) and then took their food, put a lot of say sauce in it and gave it back to them. Of course, they were kids. I am too, but I guess I was always the odd one. They cried and wouldn't eat so the teacher gave them a scolding (I think) and then new servings. As for me, for being overboard, I was given the sauced food (the one I did) and was asked to finished it. Picture me crying? No. I wasn't that girl. I was raised by strict sisters, who insisted on this rule "if you know how to sulk, then you know how to not". It was a known rule not to cry, not to make a scene in public, not to ask for things just because you want them, not to bring shame to your parents. So I took the plate, as horrible as it taste, I ate it clean. All the while I kept my eyes on the siblings. I guess it was one part envy, that they get to eat delicious food, one part hatred, for calling me names, and one part challenge, not that I will get back to them, but at the thought of one day, they'll get a taste of revenge from the tiny kids. After all, tiny people can be great. Now that I think about it though, they were probably bullying that kid because he was weak, not because of his height.
My brother was given a set of books by my aunt when he was standard one or two (7 or 8 years old), then another when he was standard five (11 years old). He's always my father's family favourite. So he gets all the aunties favour. He's nice, obedient, and pretty smart so it's not that much of a surprise. Plus, he was nice to me, at least until he's 13. So he lent me his books. I suspect it's mainly to show off (or maybe genuinely out of kindness, or maybe he had to, because I'm the younger sis who likes to report on my siblings misdeed). I loved the Aesop's collection and the The Land Before Time collection. They're simple but with really moving messages. I felt like doing all the good deeds in the world when I read them. Coincidentally, I was active with story-telling competitions at that time so I usually use these stories (mostly from Aesop) in the competitions. It was also during these years that I first encountered The Secret Garden. I was looking for a toy, at the same time, helping my sister clean, then I saw the book on the shelve. What interest me at first was the colour of the book; green, my favourite. Then the illustration. It was a girl, looking somewhat melancholy (at that age, I just thought she didn't look happy), and dressed in black. Most book that I read have happy pictures of children, dressed in vibrant colours. If anyone would look glum, it'll be the picture of those adults. But this book clearly illustrates a sad child. I was, at that time, under the impression of how every kid shouts and scream and sulk for all the wrong reason, but they are not unhappy. Though of course, I was only happy because of ignorance, I guess. Only years later I found out how lonely and somewhat abandoned my siblings are. We just dealt with it all these years because of the simple rule "if you know how to sulk, you know how to not". If we know how to be alone, we know how to not. The rules go for everything that we can manage. Dickon, the lovely kind boy survived me that book. It was so dear to me, so precious, I would re-read it as many times as I could. It was unbelievably, sadly, relatable. Only she had Dickon & his family, he had them with her as she grew in that mansion. My siblings and I moved to many places and stayed only a short time at each. Who do we have but each other? It remain, to this day, my dearest favourite book. As for the cleaning, I abandoned it, which increase my sister's frustration.
At eight, Huninis bought me a book about a kid from a broken family. At first, the book made no impression on me. First, it's yellow. I hated yellow. Second, the illustrations were simply stick-men. Stil, it's a book, so I read it. I don't remember the title, or the author. I lent it to my sister when I was in Form 1 or 2 and she probably lost it in her dorm. I remember though, that I was so engrossed in the story that I read it at every chance I got. I brought it to school, to my friends dismay as I read it all the time and wouldn't play with them. Plainly, I ignored everyone. My neighbours are fine with it. I guess they rather see me with a book and having me at their doorstep with eyes on their food or running around making mischief or jumping and sliding on their roof. My siblings, I think, like it when I'm reading too. I can only guess that it's because I don't go around digging their secrets and report it to dad or messing with their stuff or controlling the TV channels or constantly asking for food. Maybe only Tazia would dislike me reading at times as I won't help with chores when I read. Plus, I'm always nicer and bearable for a few days or sometimes weeks after a good read. My friends? They hate it when I read. They think books steal my time away from them. I ignored their remarks because well, I read before I begun to have friends. So history wise, they steal my time away from books, not the other way around.
I wish I could share more of why I read what, and how I felt when I read them, and how it influenced me, or my surrounding. It's already 5.04 a.m. and my class starts at 8.00 a.m. and I haven't had any sleep.
Currently, I'm reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. I had the book since highschool but there was always something else to read.
My point is that books are not just words to me. They contain my memories. I love walking beside the bookshelves and pick up a book or just stare at the titles and everything came back. The history of when I first pick up the book, the second time, the third, why and how, and what I did next, or who suggested it. Photos may be a memory book to some, but to me, my memory is etched in the block of papers that recorded the words of others. And that, to me, is beautiful, how I am in the world of others, and how their lives, is part of mine.
And how, in the end, relationships are not tied by only blood. One can be strongly bound to someone else without any spoken words, or blood relation, or skin-ships.
I realized all these when I was browsing through books just two days ago in Huninis's house. And I saw some old books with messages; some contains words of encouragement, some of partings, some of meetings. Reading a book and traveling in its tale is wonderful, but what made you go into the book and what you bring out of it into the world is the beautiful part of the process.
I hope dearly that my children and my grandchildren and generations after will know of this beauty and never loose it.
It's what supports me.
I grew with them that they are partly responsible for shaping me to what I am. Twisted as I may be, I'm still sane because authors all over the world were and are assembling their thoughts and ideals to weave a story that are altogether sad, happy, depressing, uplifting and most of all, living.
Goodnight.
Goodmorning.
Until next time.
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