WHERE IT ALL STARTED

Books helped crystallize in my imagination that even someone so young could have agency over their own life

I was never considered a reader in my family. Growing up, it was my older sister who was avidly reading or writing in her diary. If I have a morsel of talent in writing I’m certain it comes from watching her read and write and my desire as a young sibling to be just like her. I was one of those late bloomers to reading. I was more of a visual learner, obsessed with pictures and comics. Books filled with printed letters felt confronting somehow. While pictures unlocked my imagination and allowed me to dream, the printed word felt constrictive and limited. I felt bound to the page.

However I loved going to my local library. As a kid, my parents would sometimes drop me and my sisters off and run errands nearby. Upon entering the building the space is divided into two sections. To the right is the children’s section and to the left the adult book section. I spent most of my time in the kids’ section, walking along the aisles and looking at books at random. Sometimes me and my younger sisters would sneak into the adult section where the books towered above us. It was the best area to play tag, weaving in and out of the aisles, trying to outsmart one another in silent delight. Once my parents returned to pick us up we’d always look through the movies to rent and I would inevitably end up choosing the animated film Watership Down, an epic tale about a group of rabbits trying to find a safe space to build a new home whilst facing predators and other tyrannical rabbit colonies

Whenever we would go to the library, which was maybe once every few weeks, it felt like I was entering a warm hug. Perhaps it was the quiet environment or the soft lighting but the library always felt inviting to me. It was a safe space for parents to leave their children for an hour or so and without them around to monitor me I felt a real sense of freedom. I felt encouraged to touch things, to lay on the rugs, to be curious. Each book was an exploration into some unknown place.

I honestly don’t know if I ever would have entertained the idea of becoming a ballet dancer had it not been for Jill Krementz’s photographic book, A Very Young Dancer, which chronicled the day-day life of a young ballet dancer as she prepared to play Clara in New York City Ballet’s The Nutcracker. Krementz’s photos captured a world so different from what I knew. It blew my mind that someone so young could have passions and dreams that would lead them on stage. The book helped crystallize in my imagination that even someone so young could have agency over their own life. Whenever I found myself in the library, I would seek out this book and spend time looking at the photos. Thinking back on it now, it was as though the book was a manual, a guide to escape a lonely, suburban childhood. I was so transfixed by this book, it was only a matter of years before I would be onstage performing in the Nutcracker myself.

I have spells where I am consumed by a book but I still don’t think of myself as a good reader. However, I still love my local library. I love perusing the aisles, touching the hardcovers wrapped in cellophane. The smell of my library soothes me.