Read between the lines, my 7th grade english teacher used to say.
I never really grasped the meaning of this statement. Back then, I thought she meant the lines of the various books I pored over, stacked in my room, stacked on the table, the couch, the chairs, on the various increments of chaos that ruled my household.
Believe me, I tried.
I squinted at the text of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Pride and Prejudice” trying, trying to find a deeper connection, a tangle of words and emotions hidden under the text, waiting, waiting for me to stumble upon it, by chance and to rejoice it. I stared at Gogol's “Dead Souls” for hours, wondering the deeper meaning of a Russian exploration of human nature, if there was one, or simply just a message from Nikolai Googol to me, warning me not to make profits off the souls …show more content…
I wrote not lines, but words. There is a difference, I presume, between writing lines, and writing words. I strung words made of thick jewelry together, and in my naivety, had not a single idea of where I was going.
8th grade rolled around, and I decided to take a vacation from poetry, and start writing stories. Fantasy worlds of urban witches and vampires, as well as a memoir on apple juice were constructed, doing absolutely zilch, to help me understand what the heck my english teacher meant, or where I was going. My friends did not either, and I did not know where to start looking, or how to start looking.
I did not understand, what my english teacher really meant, until I started creating lines of my own. They splayed from the ends of my pencil, and twisted and turned, knotting together, refusing to stay in the orderly lines I placed them in. They reeked of something worse than bird guano, threw temper tantrums, made me cry, made me laugh, and I will, not for one second, regret writing
I never really grasped the meaning of this statement. Back then, I thought she meant the lines of the various books I pored over, stacked in my room, stacked on the table, the couch, the chairs, on the various increments of chaos that ruled my household.
Believe me, I tried.
I squinted at the text of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Pride and Prejudice” trying, trying to find a deeper connection, a tangle of words and emotions hidden under the text, waiting, waiting for me to stumble upon it, by chance and to rejoice it. I stared at Gogol's “Dead Souls” for hours, wondering the deeper meaning of a Russian exploration of human nature, if there was one, or simply just a message from Nikolai Googol to me, warning me not to make profits off the souls …show more content…
I wrote not lines, but words. There is a difference, I presume, between writing lines, and writing words. I strung words made of thick jewelry together, and in my naivety, had not a single idea of where I was going.
8th grade rolled around, and I decided to take a vacation from poetry, and start writing stories. Fantasy worlds of urban witches and vampires, as well as a memoir on apple juice were constructed, doing absolutely zilch, to help me understand what the heck my english teacher meant, or where I was going. My friends did not either, and I did not know where to start looking, or how to start looking.
I did not understand, what my english teacher really meant, until I started creating lines of my own. They splayed from the ends of my pencil, and twisted and turned, knotting together, refusing to stay in the orderly lines I placed them in. They reeked of something worse than bird guano, threw temper tantrums, made me cry, made me laugh, and I will, not for one second, regret writing