The Written Word

I don't remember when I learned to read.  In fact, as far as I can remember, I have always been reading.  I was lucky enough to have parents who read to me every night.  The way my mom explains it is that she knew you were supposed to read to your children every day; she just wasn't sure exactly how long.  So my parents would read to me before bed, and just when my eyes were finally closing, they would stop reading in the hopes of tip-toeing out of the room.  But, as soon as the reading stopped, my eyes would open, and I would say, "More book."  According to my mom, this nightly marathon of reading is why I love to read today.  Lately, I have been thinking about how much work it used to be to produce written text.  I will proudly admit that watching Newsies led me to pay homage to the editors who put the words of Shakespeare, Emerson, Dickinson, Hawthorne, and so many others into books and pamphlets.  After handwriting, typewritters must have seemed like such a luxury; yet even then, authors had to painstakingly type their ideas and emotions onto paper.  We, the readers, benefit from their diligence.  It is easy, in the age of kindles and online books, to forget the work it used to take to produce literature.