Teach Me

I believe the best part of being alive is your imagination. Many times I don't know if half the stuff I remember is true or not, but it makes me feel all mushy inside when I do. It's that feeling of having a piece of chocolate cake melt in your mouth, or being able to stay in bed on a weekday.
One of the earliest memories I have (or think I have) is actually when I was an infant. I remember one summer day, laying on my mother's stomach sleeping. I remember a flood of light pouring into our small apartment window and warming my back. I could feel my mother's heartbeat thumping next to my ear. Was I awake? I don't really know. It seemed like an out of body experience. It was what I felt and saw at the same time. I could see me, as a little child rising up and down on my mother's stomach. How peaceful life was back then.
The next memory I have is of me twirling. I remember taking ballet lessons in the 1st grade at Trinity Lutheran School, but this memory was before those lessons. In my memory, I twirled and twirled in my room so fast that I began to float. I floated up into the air all the way to the ceiling. At first I loved the feeling of being up in the air, of being weightless. Then I started to get scared because I wasn't able to come back down. Then I again I don't ever remember how I was able to come back down, so that would mean I never was up in the first place. But I still like to believe I had the power to at least float, if not fly.
I think these early flights of fancy helped encourage my love of books. My parents were never able to read to me because well, they didn't know how to read English. My mom would drop me off everyday at our neighbor's house and her older son would take me to Pio Pico Koreatown Library Branch in Los Angeles. It was hardly worth calling a library, but for me it was an adventure away from the everyday drab. I don't remember any of the stories, but I do remember Mrs. Brown, the librarian. All the little kids would gather around her during story time and I would be whisked away into a new world, only to be brought back minutes later to be dragged back home. I remember the disappointment I felt when I realized I couldn't borrow a book because I was too young to be able to sign my own name on a library card. Then after days of practicing, my mom finally took me to the library for my very own library card. It was just a small rectangular piece of paper, but it had that glorious line. You know the line with the x on it. I slowly and carefully signed my name and double checked to see if I spelled it correctly. As excited as I was to recieve my first library card, I immediatly felt disappointment when I realized I could only borrow 10 books and 2 videos at a time. What a gip! But the cunning little fox that I am realized I could just go back hours later and use my mom's library card to borrow some more books.
At home I would crawl into my parent's closet with books and a flashlight, underneath all the hanging dresses and suits, and read. Sometimes, my parents would find me in there and have to carry me to bed. Many times I got in trouble when I didn't respond to my mother's call and made her worry. Several years, later I had to trade in my library card for a plastic one. I felt a little ache in my chest and didn't really want to change it, it was more than a card to me. I remember the librarian telling my father that the library card would also come with a smaller version that I could attach to my key chain. Boy did she think I was stupid.