31 days of gratitude. Day 14
Yesterday I bought a couple Winnie The Pooh books from a thrift store for myself. Not for a young cousin or for some future child I might have or babysit. Nope, just for me. It wasn't the philosophical "Tao of Pooh" or even the original A.A. Milne Winnie The Pooh. Nope, it was two edition's of Disney's "My First Winnie The Pooh" series. The text is larger. The sentences are shorter. There are fewer words on each page and fewer pages (equal emphasis is on the illustrations). Intended for beginning readers or even pre-verbal children possibly.
When I was in second grade my teacher, (I loved this teacher. I accidentally called her mom once), told me that I could be reading more challenging books. I was encouraged to put down my beloved chapter books and push myself to tackle more advanced texts. Her influence lead me to look through the bins with the largest books (this was still when books were in categorical bins) with more unfamiliar words and long paragraphs. By nine years old, although I derived little pleasure from it, I was trying to work my way through a 400 page novel written in the 1950s because it was the book with the smallest font I could find, and I thought doing so would win the approval of my educators. At twelve I was reading "Memoirs of A Geisha" and novels by Patricia Highsmith who wrote about psychologically disturbed acts of murder. By that point there was not only no limits to what I would pick up to read there was definitely no censorship, as long as it was "literature."
I loved reading and I was engrossed in these books, but there was definitely a part of me that was doing it because I thought it was impressive and, again, would earn the approval of the adults in my life. To be honest, even though few people if anybody would tell me that reading was "bad" for me, I think I didn't always have a healthy relationship to reading. Often I would emerge from the world of my books moody and wishing I could escape from reality back into fiction again. Later in life, I traded fiction for self-help books and religious texts. I was still driven by a need to be better, to be worthy, to be loved.
It was Sister Lilli Anna at the Community of St. Mary who showed me what the love of reading could look like at any age. A trip back from the library and she had a bag full of children's books. She kept them by her bed, she said, to read at night. Sister Lilli Anna was a kind and intelligent middle aged woman. She could be reading anything she wanted, and she chose books with colorful illustrations and simple stories for the ultimate "easy reading."
At first I embarrassed by the idea of walking into the children's section of the library unaccompanied by any smaller human being, but Sister Lilli Anna let me borrow some of her books. I was hooked. I had forgotten just how poignant a children's book could be. Just enough said with the right words and delightful illustrations to tell the rest.
I am so happy and so grateful I no longer feel the same pressure to only read what might "improve" or challenge me. I am so grateful I can lay down in bed before sleep and open a Winnie The Pooh book and be entertained by the pictures and comforted by the no-frills narrative, and even, after resonating with a simple message or moral about life, feel worthy and feel loved.
