When I was 13 years old, my family decided it was time to
move from the tiny town of Princeville, IL where I had spent a decade of my
life. There were only a handful of things about that decade and that tiny town
that I was going to miss, and the library was one of them.
When I was four years old, I taught myself to read. My
mother and siblings had been reading to me for as long as I could remember –
sometimes grudgingly by my older brother who made it clear that he had better
things to do with his time than to read The Little Engine That Could and Peter
Rabbit to his littlest sister. It struck me that if I could only learn what all
the words in books meant – not just the words in books I knew – then I could
read anything I wanted and never have to worry about disgruntled brothers or
busy moms not being able to read to me.
And so just like that, I learned to read. My
family understandably doubted me when one Sunday morning I announced that I
could read. I remember marching to the front door in my pyjamas, my fuzzy
yellow house robe that made me feel like a duckling flapping in my determined
wake. I yanked open the door and picked up the heavy Sunday newspaper from the
snowy doorstep. And I opened the colourful comics, choose a comic strip at random, and read every word, every frame, as my family hung over me
with their mouths open. I have never stopped reading ever since then.
For me, books were an escape. And I had so much to escape
from. I was the youngest of five kids and often felt unnoticed and overlooked.
I was introverted, shy, and introspective from a very young age. I knew my
family struggled to make ends meet and somehow took on a guilt that my existence
didn’t help my mother stretch our budget. I was sexually abused in a myriad of
ritualized acts over the span of seven years by a brother who knew how to
manipulate, threaten, and terrify a young, sensitive person. My parents somehow
remained blind to all of these things and held our family in a chain of control
and strictness that often left me suffocating and resigned, like a moth trapped
in mud.
But books! Books opened worlds I could only dream existed,
far from the poverty, abuse, and smothering strictness. I could forget the pain
and confusion of the narrowed world I lived in and be swept to forests, cities,
the moon and more. Every week, our family would troop to the local library, a
sturdy brick building in the small, town square. We would stock up on library
books from almost every genre (our parents banned magic and fantasy as worldly
and evil) and the librarians would look on with a mix of fear and confusion.
Maybe they wondered how anyone could read that many books in one week. They
openly claimed that they thought we were a danger to their collections: I was
once forbidden by them to checkout more than three of their original copies of
Beatrix Potter’s children’s books for fear they might be lost if we had a fire.
With such things shared to me as a child from a librarian –
an adult saying that she hoped my house didn’t catch fire and damage books – it’s
a miracle I respected and looked up to the librarians, most of whom also echoed
the town chant that we were the Weird Widners. Small towns are notorious for singling
out the birds whose feathers looked different from the rest of the flock. And
my family was consistently different looking in every category from how we kids
were taught at home to the religious group we were a part of with many an odd behaviour
sandwiched between.
Regardless of all that history, when we had packed our
belongings and started to leave that town, we stopped at the library for a
final look around at what had essentially been one of the best places I’d visited
in my relatively short life. Even after my siblings and parents had gone back out
into the late fall afternoon to our packed car, I lingered, looking up at the
way the sun cast shadows and light across the shelves of so many books I loved.
One of the librarians, whose name was Nancy, approached me and stood watching me, a small smile on her face. I thought that
she might have something nice to say about my family, about me. Maybe, for once
to someone I was not invisible. I made eye contact with her and smiled back.
“You know,” she said, making herself suddenly busy dusting
the book shelves between us, “You will never amount to much, I’m afraid.”
Her words were like ice water poured into my heart. Could my
ears being playing tricks?
No…she went on: “You were raised by weirdos. You’re a
weirdo. You may think you’re special because you read so much and write your
little stories…”
Why had I ever shared my stories with this horrible woman? I
thought, but my tongue was frozen, eyes wide as I stared at her.
“You may be leaving this small town, but I’m telling you,”
she continued, her voice nonchalant as if she was discussing the weather. “You’re
never going to amount to much.”
In the silence that followed her proclamation, I swear I
could hear the dust motes trapped in the sunbeams over us thud into each other,
as stunned as I was. My heart gave one stuttering, ragged beat and then it
began to race. I had never in all my life felt so outraged at an adult. Before
I could think about it, I stepped around the shelf that separated us until I
was directly in front of her.
Standing on my tiptoes, thrusting myself just inches from her
placid visage, I spoke, my voice low but clear: “Mark my words, lady! One day I’m
going to soar!” And I had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes grow and her mouth
fall open before she stumbled away from me, all but pushing me away. Then I
spun on my heels and left that place.
Maybe I was a nerd for loving books so much I made myself
learn to read them. Maybe I was a weirdo for writing stories about my stuffed
toys talking or magical moments between little boys and singing crickets. Maybe
I was disadvantaged in some ways by being raised by parents whose desire to
keep me safe thrust me fully and constantly into awkward social dysfunction.
But I looked up to librarians, whose jobs I thought must be amazing because
they were the Keepers of Books and Readers of Everything.
But with that monologue,
delivered in such a causal registry, Nancy made me realize that in this life,
you sometimes have to be your own damn hero. Don’t rely on others to help you
up or even leave you alone.
I have many times looked back at this experience, which is
one I don't think I have ever shared with anyone, and I wondered in my lowest moments: Was Nancy right? I've had my flights, but there are still greater heights.
Then I shrug, stretch my wings, and go for flight number [fill
in the blank]. I don’t have time to
let anyone keep me down.
