Carlene Havel's Blog: Carlene - Posts Tagged "reading"

I wonder if we fully appreciate the great gift of reading. A reader can pick up a book written by someone who lived centuries ago and read about that person’s ideas, point of view, and experiences. If someone’s legacy is in musical notation, it needs no translation. A violinist can pull out a score that may not have seen the light of day for four hundred years, written by someone whose speech the musician would not have understood. Yet through the phenomenon of written communication, the song written by some long-dead composer lives. What a miracle.

Age two and a half: I sit on the floor watching my mother read a paperback novel. Her eyes move across, then down. Across again, and down again. Occasionally she turns a page. If I want to know what is in my little picture books, I have to ask someone to read to me. It makes me jealous that Mother is so absorbed in her book. Age three: I climb into my grandmother’s lap with my Little Golden Book “Kerry the Fire Engine Dog”’ in hand. “Read to me?” I plead. After a few pages, I point out that she skipped a page. “If you have the book memorized, there’s no point in me reading it to you,” she says, dumping me out of her lap. Age five: “I don’t like spinach,” I impertinently remind my mother. “Those are mustard greens. Eat them.” “No,” I argue, “this is spinach. I can tell.” She digs a can from the trash. “Look,” she says, “mustard greens.” I know I am defeated. “All right,” I agree sullenly, “I’ll eat this because I can’t prove it’s spinach. But next year I’m going to learn to read. Then I’ll know that can says ‘spinach’ on it. And after that, I won’t ever eat this stuff again.” I eventually learned to love spinach, but never recovered from that wonderful obsession with reading.

What am I reading? That's sometimes a difficult question. Should I mention the book by the bed, or the one sitting in the TV room, or those four or five currently active on my kindle? Sometimes I want to float in froth, and other days I want to sink my mental teeth into something deeply philosophical or theological. What did people do before they had books? Reading can teach, challenge, entertain, and comfort. I'm so grateful David was inspired to write the 23rd Psalm. It has given reassurance to the human race for thousands of years--because it was written down.

Do you recall what life was like before you learned to read? I have a few such memories:

I sat on the porch and cried. It has hit me that I know nothing other than what other people have told me. I, from my own mind, cannot point to a single fact that I know, unless I trust the words of others. For some reason, I found this revelation devastating. My mother asked me why I am crying. She smiled, and pulled me into her lap. “Next year you will go to school,” she reminded me. “Yes!” I was instantly cheered. "When I go to school, I will learn to read. And THEN I will know things for myself."