Pages always looked like codes to me. When you let our eyes glaze over a text, you blur out the black blocks of words and he white spaces in between come out like different paths to the end of the page. I've always listened but never really comprehended. Reading for me was like this. My eyes listened and my brain was supposed to understand. But when I wasn't comprehending, my eyes would continue to read the words that were no longer that. I had created a black wall and instead would follow the paths to the end of the page.
If I wasn't reading, what was I doing?
When Manguel talks about how whether or not reading is independent of listening (37). I don't think it is. If you aren't listening to what your eyes are seeing, then all meaning is lost in the text.When I read a book, I don't want to dig through to find symbols or motifs. There should be multiple maps to these symbols... Sort of like how the end of a book is the end of a jouney--- a destination.
My mind is made of maps and I think everyone's mind is that way too. Shouldn't books be the same?
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Steam
When I was a kid, I didn't speak English well. It wasn't my native and until I was 10, it wasn't my family vernacular. I had my own language, but without the correct one, I was alone among my English speaking peers. In the hallways of my elementary school, 3rd grade students had up projects that depicted stories with words that were beautifully written. I couldn't read. But, I didn't find them beautiful because of the meaning of the words. My speech teacher called the writing cursive and that it would take a while until I would have the opportunity to learn how. Cursive looked beautiful and with every project, I traced over the swirls and scribbles with my fingers. I thought, maybe if I can remember the way a swirl was written, I could draw it later.
I couldn't write. But I could make it look like I could.
Reading didn't mean anything to me. It's hard to enjoy a book when you don't understand it. We had no books written in our vernacular at home, so instead I drew words. Put together, they had no meaning, but to me, they looked beautiful and that's all that mattered. My parents had a large shower with glass walls all around. I would wait for the steam to fog up the glass then, with a finger dipped in shampoo, I would draw swirls on the glass. To anyone, a child was being silly. But to me, I was writing a story. The shampoo would keep the steam from covering up my words so I could look at them until I decided it was time to leave the water.
I didn't understand then, but I had a real jealousy for those who could write and read. Two things I didn't think I ever cared about, I desired more than anything. My mom looked at my scribbles and all she said was, "What is this?"
"It's cursive." But mom just laughed.
I never broke reading and writing apart. I always associated words by how they looked and what they're meaning was. It was the only possible way to do it at that time. Manguel explains a difference between "pure-sensation" and "perception". While one was an involuntary act of seeing, the other was a voluntary act of understanding. The importance of these two things was that "it identified for the first time, in the act of perceiving, a gradation of conscious action that proceeds from "seeing" to "deciphering" to "reading" (34).
Is that what I was doing? I thought I was just being ridiculous.
After learning how to read and write, I can't say reading is still the most meaningful, but now, I can understand and I can take part in something where I am not alone anymore. I hope that reading can make my writing better and with great writing, steam will never cover it.
I couldn't write. But I could make it look like I could.
Reading didn't mean anything to me. It's hard to enjoy a book when you don't understand it. We had no books written in our vernacular at home, so instead I drew words. Put together, they had no meaning, but to me, they looked beautiful and that's all that mattered. My parents had a large shower with glass walls all around. I would wait for the steam to fog up the glass then, with a finger dipped in shampoo, I would draw swirls on the glass. To anyone, a child was being silly. But to me, I was writing a story. The shampoo would keep the steam from covering up my words so I could look at them until I decided it was time to leave the water.
I didn't understand then, but I had a real jealousy for those who could write and read. Two things I didn't think I ever cared about, I desired more than anything. My mom looked at my scribbles and all she said was, "What is this?"
"It's cursive." But mom just laughed.
I never broke reading and writing apart. I always associated words by how they looked and what they're meaning was. It was the only possible way to do it at that time. Manguel explains a difference between "pure-sensation" and "perception". While one was an involuntary act of seeing, the other was a voluntary act of understanding. The importance of these two things was that "it identified for the first time, in the act of perceiving, a gradation of conscious action that proceeds from "seeing" to "deciphering" to "reading" (34).
Is that what I was doing? I thought I was just being ridiculous.
After learning how to read and write, I can't say reading is still the most meaningful, but now, I can understand and I can take part in something where I am not alone anymore. I hope that reading can make my writing better and with great writing, steam will never cover it.
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