I have a thousand other things I should be doing this Sunday morning, but I find that there's a memory stuck in my head that I can't let go.
I have always, as long as I can remember, a lover of books. I use them to escape reality. It's not that there's anything in particular that I NEED to escape from, it's just that I WANT to escape. I want to immerse myself in someone else's world and think about someone else's life. I want to travel to different places and learn about other lives. And since the budget doesn't allow a lot of travel, and honestly never has, I do it by reading. I'd rather go to the library than Target. I'd sit in a bookstore from open to close before I would sit in a movie theater.
When I was in middle school, I had an English teacher who took a passing interest in whatever I happened to be reading at the moment. I had a much used Wahoo Library card, back when the library was next to the police and fire station. One day, I pulled a book off the shelf and checked it out. The book was The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. I don't remember how I came across it. I just know that I started reading it, and keeping in mind that I was somewhere around thirteen years old, it was a bit of a struggle for me to understand the themes in the book. But I do love a challenge. When I showed up with the book at school, sitting on top of my text books and notebooks in English class, Ms. Jacobsen noticed and commented, "That's quite a book." And I must have kind of smiled? And she said, "I worry that this book is going to break your heart a little. Come talk to me about it if you want."
We all know I love the dramatics, but when I say to you that the book changed my life, I leave the drama behind and mean every word. I didn't know how to talk about it. I didn't have the words for what I felt, but Ms. Jacobsen was absolutely correct. And some days later, when she asked me how it was going, I all but burst into tears. She said, "Jenny, (because I was Jenny in those days) do me a favor and read this book again in a few years. You'll be surprised at what you learn from it all over again."
So. Shout out to Ms. Connie Jacobsen, wherever she may be. I have my doubts that she would even remember this, but I am happy to report that I took her advice, and not only reread the book once more, but actually several more times throughout the years, each time I set it down I learn a little something new. She could have told me not to read it. She could have suggested a more appropriate book. She could have called my parents and insisted they be a little more careful about what I checked out at the library. Instead, she said, "Come talk to me about it if you want". We really don't give teachers the credit they deserve for what they do. Ms. J. knew enough about her student to know that a little heartbreak might be necessary.
As an aside, Steinbeck's novel met with controversy. It was burned and banned and criticized. But, years later, when I pulled it off the shelf of my local library, I didn't know any of that. I sat down in Small Town, Nebraska, in a bedroom carpeted in green, on a twin bed, and absorbed a story that had the power to break my heart and fill in all the gaps in one fell swoop. I had a teacher who was willing to help me understand it.
"I ain't gonna try to teach 'em nothin'. I'm gonna try to learn." John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
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