The written word
Dear Ma. Dear Esther.
I want to tell you both something. In writing. Because it matters.
When I look back at my first positive influences around the written word and the English language, the first person who comes to mind is you, Mom. You, who taught your children that through reading we could learn anything, escape anywhere, and be anyone.
*Before we entered Kindergarten my mom taught most of her six children how to read well above our age level—while working multiple jobs, running businesses, keeping a meticulous house, managing husbands, and raising babies.
You showed us that worlds unlocked (both real and imagined) when we cracked open a book and read. Through example you taught me that a bedside table is incomplete without a book and a library is a magical place. I can still hear the floorboards creak in the old Huntingdon Valley Library and smell the newness of the carpet when they relocated across the street. When I travel, I hunt down bookstores the way others look for popular attractions.
Reading was nonnegotiable in our home. I didn’t know it was not that way across the globe or even across our neighborhood. As an adult, over time I learned that I must ask ‘Do you read?’ before ‘What are you reading?’ Exchanging book recommendations with my sisters and with you is a sweet spark of connection. It’s a language I speak with my friends and my husband.
That's where the love began.
Although I had English teachers and read throughout my adolescence, I don't recall any save one: you, Esther. I can still hear you getting up from your desk (loudly), exchanging words with your officemate, Kira (loudly) and crossing the hall to enter the classroom (loudly). The anticipation—the exhilaration—the trepidation for everything that was about to transpire is still a visceral sensation. The information I'd absorb in lecture. The opinions I would form in debate. The places I'd travel in my brain during exams. Even then I knew we were the lucky ones sitting there before you.
You had such a presence as you entered the room. Thirty years later I can still see your bright white teeth set against your olive skin. Your gleaming green eyes. Your long shiny curls framing your face. I can even remember your strong calf muscles—your calf muscles made an impact for god's sake! And your hands—wildly waving—exclaiming—punctuating the air.
You made me want to take up space and make noise. You made me want to find my essence and then put it on full display. You made me want to be unapologetically me. You made learning feel exciting, sexy, wild, and freeing. You dug trenches in my brain that are still filling today. You planted the seeds of curiosity that are forever sprouting in my life. You taught me that my brain was my most prized possession and that it was capable of greatness.
At the same time you taught me the fine art of subtlety, the beauty in quiet defiance, the allure of listening instead of talking. There was so much outside the confines of the syllabus that entered the airwaves of your classroom. What happened in there was magic. I know it because that magic still lives in me today.
Thank you to both of you—for everything you have given, and continue to give. To every mind that is fortunate enough to be put in your hands—students, kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews. I am forever grateful to have had the opportunity to be in your orbits. You both have truly made this world a better place.
xo
Darla