I’m a voracious reader. I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember, and by reading I mean, that picking up a good piece of fiction can get me more excited than a brownie with fudge. And that, is a HUGE deal. I didn’t used to read what you would call ‘intellectual’ work when I was younger. I’m not embarrassed to admit I used to inhale Sweet Valley High and Goosebumps, with some Nancy Drew and Enid Blyton on the side. So my reading material was diverse to say the least, but not always intense. When my dad introduced my to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it felt like someone opened this hidden literary door, but one that lead me on a very confusing, exciting and challenging journey. All of a sudden I was reading words I couldn’t quite comprehend, I was walking around with a dictionary and I was re-reading and underlining multiple lines on a single page. And more than that, I was shaking my head at the mere genius of the words written in front of me and their mysterious yet fantastic relationship with each other. Suddenly, I wanted to push the limits. I loved the feeling of being baffled and challenged. I loved not knowing what each sentence meant and I was in awe of the brilliance of those that had a command over English that I was far from achieving.
From Marquez I jumped to other authors who wrote in genres I found fascinating like musings about life and more specifically ‘magic realism.’ I loved everything about that style of expression. The fantastical set-up, the workings of a mind that was shuttling between reality and perception. And as I grew older, the book lists grew varied and well, longer.
On the side, I was always writing. My own humble attempts at trying to express myself. But just recently, I started feeling a tinge of the green eyed monster. The nagging feeling that in the midst of such greats, where would I stand? On the grand stage of literary expression, would I always be a bystander or would I maybe find a little corner for myself? It’s a strange feeling. You have this bursting of words within you, you imagine yourself putting them together in commendable ways but life keeps going and you try and create that masterpiece you feel is resting within you, yet time moves faster than your mind and well, your fingers.
That’s when you begin to feel a little envy. A little push. That maybe instead of just thinking and dreaming of ways of realising your passion, maybe you should just do it. I don’t even know where I’ll end up, or whether I’ll end up anywhere at all, but I know I need to try. I need to put it down on paper and then bare my soul to the world and let it judge. At least then, I can say I tried to find my own little place in the literary realm and wasn’t just in the audience, waiting for someone to hand me my ‘big break.’
Latte & Love 