when i was a flower growing wild and free
Ten years ago, I was nine and in the fourth grade, and I was going blind. The world was growing blurrier everyday, colors starting to mix together and letters becoming harder and harder to read.
(Okay, the alternative to that was going insane, or being dyslexic, but blind seemed like the safer option at that point.)
It turns out I was going blind in the most literal sense possible: I needed glasses. I'd never needed them before, but people have started wearing glasses at a younger age, and I was genetically pre-disposed to, anyway.
Plus, I read a lot. I always had a book with me. I learned the terrain of the school so I could read while walking. I learned to go down to the cafeteria early so I could sit, undisturbed, at a table. Just me and Dickens. Or me and Alcott. Or me and Hamilton. I could be hungry for actual food and voracious for more things to read, at the same time. (Nine was also a year after that infamous article that divulged I read in the bathroom. In hindsight, the teasing of my peers = small potatoes- a lot of people read in the bathroom. While they were probably just shitting and making weird faces, I was getting through another Nancy Drew. Sucks to be you, third graders of 1998.)
So yeah, going blind: inevitable. I just got new glasses last week. Everyone asks if they're real. They look too thick to be. Without them, I'm useless- slamming into walls, getting lost, ignoring people because I can't recognize their faces.
My favorite bookstore in the world is a transient one- and the wider world of the internet has given me other bookbuying options, though often I am cashless (and actually, credit card-less, so how would I pay.) Here is one I would buy from, if I had the cash: Avalon.ph. I haven't had the chance to look around since rehearsal started (my whole life was put on pause, HAHA), but sembreak. Sembreak and I will conquer the mountain of books I've been hoarding. Just you wait.
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"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
-Jorge Luis Borges
(Okay, the alternative to that was going insane, or being dyslexic, but blind seemed like the safer option at that point.)
It turns out I was going blind in the most literal sense possible: I needed glasses. I'd never needed them before, but people have started wearing glasses at a younger age, and I was genetically pre-disposed to, anyway.
Plus, I read a lot. I always had a book with me. I learned the terrain of the school so I could read while walking. I learned to go down to the cafeteria early so I could sit, undisturbed, at a table. Just me and Dickens. Or me and Alcott. Or me and Hamilton. I could be hungry for actual food and voracious for more things to read, at the same time. (Nine was also a year after that infamous article that divulged I read in the bathroom. In hindsight, the teasing of my peers = small potatoes- a lot of people read in the bathroom. While they were probably just shitting and making weird faces, I was getting through another Nancy Drew. Sucks to be you, third graders of 1998.)
So yeah, going blind: inevitable. I just got new glasses last week. Everyone asks if they're real. They look too thick to be. Without them, I'm useless- slamming into walls, getting lost, ignoring people because I can't recognize their faces.
My favorite bookstore in the world is a transient one- and the wider world of the internet has given me other bookbuying options, though often I am cashless (and actually, credit card-less, so how would I pay.) Here is one I would buy from, if I had the cash: Avalon.ph. I haven't had the chance to look around since rehearsal started (my whole life was put on pause, HAHA), but sembreak. Sembreak and I will conquer the mountain of books I've been hoarding. Just you wait.
---
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
-Jorge Luis Borges