As I head out into the brisk London air, full on a proper English breakfast, a thrill of excitement and joy flood me. I am headed off on a literary adventure—to visit William Blake’s tomb—and for a person who is directionally challenged, half the love of seeing it is just getting there! However, getting there is a breeze, and I am breathless knowing, that in moments, I will be in front of a tomb that has the remains of a man whose work I admired, whose poetry I read, and whose struggles with his existence of life and his relationship to religion still linger in my brain years after I’ve learned it. In fact, this special knowledge is the glorious red carpet that leads me to the past, and simultaneously leads me to a new awareness of myself, as I revel in knowing that a passion whose ardor still burns bright within me—a passion for literature—is the same passion that has liberated me from fears of being lost, fears of being a woman traveling on her own, and fears from the tiny self-doubts that can insidiously creep into a person’s psyche. All of this liberation found within the words of books. Miraculous.
These words, from the time I was a young girl, have always had a hand in telling me who I am; the reason I love literature so much is because I see the whole of humanity in it, and that whole includes all the colors and hues of whom I am. And I am an individual who thrives on sharing her love of literature and curiosity about everything; I naturally assume everyone wants to know everything.
Thus, this blog is created – to share with the segment of a curious humanity that takes second looks at people who catch their eye, the humanity that caresses the image in the photograph, wistfully dreaming itself there, and the part of humanity that is awed by what it still does not know. The part of humanity which peeks into the unknown, discovers a new place, and simultaneously discovers a new awareness of itself.
The awareness of self I’ve discovered is that the passion for eliciting an excitement about anything in life is one of the main reasons why I tutor students. There’s rarely anything more exciting than watching a student internalize and own the material he or she is learning; I would venture that is akin to watching your own child take his or her first steps as a toddler. It’s not so much that all of the excitement stems from watching learning happening, but it’s even more profound when you realize that the learning stems from connections being made through storytelling – first, the storytelling of the author, but then, the storytelling of the person who’s had an engagement with that author, and who is now getting to watch a new relationship build through the eyes of a student who’s looking at reading with new eyes. Miraculous.
It is with this awareness that I look back fondly to my visit to London this past Christmas, and to the tan stone of Blake’s grave that had a ladybug sitting atop of it. I took my own stories to it, communed with the stories that Blake shared with me, and the union of those two stories has now had rebirth while I share all these stories—this awareness--with you.
