vision
I can think of no better way to describe my passion for storytelling than through stories from my childhood:
Growing up, I was desperate for books. Any book. We were working class, and there were no books in the house.
In primary school, we each received a gold embossed King James Bible presented in a box lined with rice paper. My first book! How I was disappointed later to find that all books weren’t offered in such an elaborate fashion, with gold embossing, presented with both hands, a precious, kingly gift.
I printed my name in awkward lettering on the first page.
I’d lock myself in the upstairs bathroom to read it. I'd sit on the toilet lid, balance on my toes and open the thick tome across my knees. Over the course of several months, I read it page by page, cover to cover, locked in the narrow bathroom, just big enough for one person.
I understood three things from this reading. 1) I was looking at an exotic text, a book written by people of another culture, and another time. Its poetry was rare and deep, and I, a 10-year-old, had the honor of holding it in my hands. AND I owned the book! In a family of 9, you owned nothing. But I owned this book! 2) I understood how the Old Testament differed from the New. I understood how radical Jesus’ message was. I got it. I saw the linear squabbles of the Old give way to the poetry, gentleness and metaphor of the New. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that of all of the people teaching it to me at school, everyone I knew, that not a single one of us was really living it. None of us understood it enough to live it. And 3) I fell in love with storytelling. How these writers from an earlier time started with the facts: Cain killing his brother Abel, then segueing into metaphor, the mark of Cain, the building of a new civilization. First the story, then the multi-dimensional ways to understand it. I fell in love with the practical details, and I fell head over heels for the final metaphor.
In 6th grade, Ms. Fiend asked me to stay after class. She stood with her hand on the doorknob of a white closet with horizontal slats in the corner of the classroom. The teacher’s closet. We weren't allowed near it. She spoke to me in her teacher’s voice. “I expect you to be responsible; I expect you to be careful. I expect you to be respectful.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. Was I in trouble again? My exuberance often landed me in trouble.
“One at a time,” she said, turning the knob. “You must put one back before you take another.” She swept her hand toward the back of the closet. In front of us was a wall of tattered used paperbacks. A wall!
“What? What?” I kept saying. “What?” I looked at her. Was she playing some prank? Would she slam the door in my face as I drew near?
The paperbacks were stacked one on top of the other. I was drawn forward, but kept looking back at Ms. Fiend, at her permed dark hair, her blue plastic framed glasses. She was the only “Ms.” I’d ever met. Was this what it meant to be a Ms? A whole wall of books. My heart pounded. I reached the books, ran my sweaty palm over the rough spines like a blind girl reading every page in Braille in quick succession. Whole universes yet to explore. Whole universes that were there the whole time.
The first one I borrowed was about a Jewish girl. A group of orphans were released from the concentration camps and given apples, a salty soup. Some of them got sick. The protagonist at the end stood on a hill. A statement came up from her belly and out her lips: I am Rachel. She started running down, yelling her name. I am Rachel. My name is Rachel. Screaming and running, hair flying, rebuilding herself from the inside out, defying all efforts to destroy her.
I was on the fire escape at recess. I held the book against my chest.
“Oh Rachel,” I hiccupped and cried. “Dear Rachel.”
I understood in my bones the power of storytelling. I knew I wanted to be a writer. I wanted everyone, just everyone, to tell their stories too.