In the spirit of Family Literacy Month, I am going to write about loving to read and write - well, more specifically, learning to read, which for me led to learning to write, which then led to loving to read and eventually loving to write and so on a
In the spirit of Family Literacy Month, I am going to write about loving to read and write - well, more specifically, learning to read, which for me led to learning to write, which then led to loving to read and eventually loving to write and so on and so forth and such is a simple version of my life.
If I were to start at the start, I'd say it was all my parents' fault I ever did learn to read and write.
Without their help in the basics, like learning to read and write my full name, or reading classic books together, such as The Hobbit and The Adventures of Tintin, or pour mes mecs Francais, Les Aventures de Tintin, I might never have built up that solid literacy base, which later led to some of my all-time favourite reads and eventually the skills necessary to execute in my current career.
Thanks, I owe you both big time.
They were also the ones that ordered and paid for my subscription to Sports Illustrated for Kids. That magazine was literally the only thing I read for nearly a decade. That was during my early rebellious years, when reading was just another thing "The Man" was making me do.
Though my parents saw value in young rebellion, they saw even more in literacy, so we compromised, even though I seem to remember thinking I was getting things my way.
Come to think of it, perhaps that's where my young love affair with sports began. But that's another story for another day.
My rebellion against "The Man" appeared to continue into high school, where the only reading I did was classroom required and the only writing I did was the goofy captions I wrote for my cartoon drawings.
But something clicked as I neared graduation. Maybe it was Lord of the Flies, maybe it was the Liberal government (not likely the second choice - though I did appreciate, as a Canadian, not taking part in the second seemingly useless and cruel American war in Iraq).
My college career began soon after, and though I wasn't much interested in the classes I was taking, I was terribly addicted to learning and thinking. And the easiest and most effective way to learn and think was to read and write about anything and everything that caught my attention.
Even if it was just writing a simple sentence or reading the first 20 pages of a book, I was incredibly interested and took it upon myself to investigate what was out there - and Jesum Crow! There is a lot of stuff out there.
I was into reading history, philosophy, religious things, short stories, long stories, poetry, lyrics - basically anything with words on it, I would read. And the more I read, the more I wanted to write.
At first, my only writing activity outside the college classroom was limited to funny (but delicious) recipes and short snippets of my thoughts on things.
Then I let the floodgates open. I wanted to write differently and write all the time but make sense when I did.
So, when I entered university I immediately involved myself in extra-curricular writing activities. I started writing short stories and poems and longer-form essays and articles. My guidance was based mostly on the things I was reading and after-hours advice from professors.
And soon I gained the courage to write publicly.
I joined my university paper, the Blue and White, though I had no idea how to properly write as a journalist, which made my articles more like subjective short stories than staunch objective reporting.
But the paper was desperate and getting even the slightest amount of positive feedback was good enough for me, so the journey together continued right through to convocation.
During that time, my reading choices narrowed in one sense, but broadened in another.
It was during my university years and the years immediately following convocation that I read some of the most influential pieces of literature to my life - and it turns out they were all fiction.
I read amazing books, including 1984 by George Orwell, my past favourite The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, current favourites On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, as well as short stories, plays and essays, including The Killers by Ernest Hemingway, Summer in the Country by Anton Chekhov and Hark! Hark! The Turncoats by E.B. White.
I could go on forever, and that's just some of the books I've actually finished. I haven't even mentioned the amazing ones I've started and continue to dabble in from day to day, let alone the more recently published titles I've found myself exploring of late.
And through all those early years of love and learning and living, I find myself here, now, at the Nouvelle, writing and reading and thinking and exploring all while earning a decent little living.
It's amazing what this world has to offer to those who are open and conscious and care to keep learning and living it out right up until that moment when it all seems to end.
