4) Used books
When Ellen graduated from grad school, she expected to keep working
towards higher education. She planned to knock off all the classics from those
“need to read before you die” lists. She would read every single thing Shakespeare
ever wrote; maybe even finally tackle War
and Peace. But instead, she kept picking up books she read in high school,
and going father and father back into her childhood until she was visiting her
parents’ home to dig up her old copies of Shel Silverstein books. Ellen thought
maybe she loved doing this so much because it was safe. She didn’t have to
think or focus. She already had an understanding of the characters. She knew the
plot and didn’t get worked up wondering what step was next for them. It was the
one thing in her life where she knew exactly where it was going.
But what
surprised her was the way her memories from the first time she read the books seemed scotch-taped to each page like some kind of scrapbook. To Kill a Mockingbird was severely
humid, that summer the air conditioning broke. She could feel the backs of her
knees velcroed to the arm of the family’s leather loveseat. Matilda smelled like campfire ash and
dirt, and was sticky with fish slime. She was hit with pangs of embarrassment when
she read A Separate Peace and
suddenly remembered how she had cried and wailed when she thought Kevin would
finally ask her out, but saw him in the lunch quad with his arm slung casually
around Alyssa Woods’ shoulders. She
stopped reading middle school books after that.
It was a
strange feeling not being in school anymore. Tense, but lazy at the same time.
She supposed that was just how mid-20’s was. It felt like something someone
should have warned her about. The university should send letters to every
graduating student or bring it up in the commencement speech. Instead, she got
a Holocaust survivor who made a speech about how everyone he cared about was
dead before the school awarded him an honorary degree. The university president
worked in every ludicrous and hopeful cliché he knew into his speech. Just
before the ceremony, Ellen and some friends made graduation bingo cards,
filling in the squares with words and phrases they felt most likely to come up.
Ellen crammed her card full of bird imagery. “Leaving the nest”. “Take flight”.
“Soar high”. She had a black out within five minutes.
After
graduation, Ellen moved. Right outside her new apartment, there was a tree with
low, strong branches. She could easily climb up, and just beyond where the
leaves thickened to blot her out of sight, there were braches that she could
sit in with her back supported. She loved reading up there and loved more when
she saw one of her roommates walking by and could call out their name without
being seen. They would turn in circles, searching for where she was until she
instructed them to look up, if she did tell them to. Ellen was in the tree,
re-reading Island of the Blue Dolphins
and remembering the warm, meaty holes left in her gums when she lost teeth.
The wind picked up, rustling the
leaves that surrounded her, sounding almost like heavy rain but dry. She
glanced up from the words and stared at the pages. The light and shadows jumbled
all over, making it look as if she was sitting in the middle of a swarm of
birds. She closed her eyes and imagined it. The thousands of birds’ wings creating
the breeze blowing through her hair, lifting her up with their power, almost
certain she could float off with them.
much love,
hedgie
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