Somewhere between 1990 and 1998, I am ensconced in these pieces of furniture, with my parents.
It’s the green Lazy Boy rocker and the white and pink floral sofa that provide the first eight safe elements that I return to over and over and over.
I turn the details in my memory like a skipping stone, smooth and familiar, ready to fly.
1. The sound of my dad singing “You’ve Got a Friend,” by Carol King, but I hear it in James Taylor's rendition.
2. A permanent squeak-creak that matches the rhythm of the right rocking chair, and how Dad taps out the rhythm of the song on my back.
3. The deep, earthy twang of woodsmoke from Dad stoking the tender of our pot-bellied stove.
4. Flannel on my cheek, pressed into a beating heart.
5. Stuart Little and The Hobbit, read aloud, Dad pushing his glasses back up his nose.
6. The white floral sofa was, in retrospect, a hideous 1990s behemoth situated in our “sun room,” but it had the softest cushions to sink into when my Mom opened her arms up. I listened to her read far after my legs grew longer than hers.
7. The smell of plumeria lotion Mom wears and the way she scratches my head as I stretch out like a cat on her lap.
8. Knowing if I ask for “one more” paragraph, chapter, or book, the answer will most likely be “yes.”
The story's second half begins with a tree, somewhere between 1994 and 1998.
Moving from the rocking chair and white tufted sofa to our old backyard in Ohio.
When I close my eyes, I’m nine years old again and I can see it so vividly.
I stood below its branches, loading my books into the dark blue bucket. My hands trembled on the ladder. I probably whispered, “I can do this,” to get myself up the wooden slats and onto the largest bough of the tree. I worked through my fear of falling one breath, one rung at a time, and I arrived at the perfect natural reading nook.
After I slid from my belly to my bottom, ungracefully swinging my legs over the rough bark, I would reach for the scratchy yellow rope and pull my bucket up to join me. It thunk-thunk-thunked along the ground and the base of the tree until I had a rhythm, hand over hand, and once it was close enough, I grabbed the cool silver handle and nestled it in a “y” of branches in front of me.
I remember I would sit back against the trunk, sighing from the effort, relaxing into the view. Buds in the spring, green leaves in summer, and the yellow to brown leaves in autumn surrounded me, making a safe space to create, to wonder, and to dream. I would crack open my book and my journal and believe I was any number of characters.
I let the stories carry me above my treetops and into worlds beyond.
From that place, a reader was nourished in the tallest tree in a backyard in Ohio, and a writer was born. I have always known stories are imperative to my well-being. I learned I would need to write my own and discover the healing that would come from it.
It’s summer 2023 and I am a grown-up (insert one part smile, one part sigh).
The kitchen table is stacked high with paint and art books. My daughter Evelyn is working on her Art History badge for American Heritage Girls, and while she paints, I read a chapter from our Big Life Journal. We are both working on Growth Mindset, nurturing the neuroplasticity of our brains. After a long, challenging season transitioning between our last duty station and this one, I have been sensing we might be close to feeling moved in.
We are signed up for all the extras, and friends have been found, but our hearts are still a bit sore. We both need to believe that someday, we’ll have ease again. I set our book down, and glance at the clock on the microwave in the kitchen. It reads 8 p.m. “It’s time to pick up,” I tell her. She groans.
“I know, but it’s late bug.” She rinses her paintbrush in a small cup, and the paint spirals down into the water, forming a murky blue cloud. While she changes into pajamas and brushes her teeth, I clean the table, pausing to run my fingers across the glossy book covers. Ev pops her head out of the bathroom door, a little toothpaste foam dribbles on her chin.
“What are we gonna read mama?” She asks.
“I’m pretty tired sweetheart,” I say, carrying the books off to the school carts we have in the laundry room. I hear her huff behind me. As I organize the materials, she taps the door behind me. “Please, Mom? Just one more?” I turn and see our nightly chapter book in her hands. She clutches it to her chest, looking up at me hopefully.
I sigh. How can I say no? Stories begin our day and end it. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I follow her to her bedroom and we cuddle up and get lost in the pages together.
What moments in your lifetime moved you toward being a reader?
What are your earliest memories of starting to capture your own stories?