reading – Deanna Repose Oaks

… aka Read Across America Day 2022 is March 2, 2022.

I never thought reading about a national day of reading would make me feel so much. When I planned this post, I planned to write about how Dr. Seuss was my first favorite author, and how his stories spawned my love of poetry, but then I realized it might be too repetitive (see My Love of Poetry). To keep from being repetitive, I changed tactics and decided to research the day instead. The Mandela Effect had me believing March 2nd was “Dr. Seuss Day” when, in actuality, it is “Read Across America Day” – a day celebrates reading on Dr. Seuss’s birthday because he’s the author that got a LOT of us reading. Easy to confuse, right?

National Educational Association, who founded Read Across America Day in 1998, encourages educational institutions and libraries to inspire people to read. They set up a calendar with suggested readings for every month, not just March… scrolling through their calendar, the following entries sent me sideways.

Nov 2021: Explore Ancestry and Identity [I don’t have that, I’m adopted]
Feb 2022: Explore Families and History [Both of mine are broken]
Apr 2022: Nuture a Sense of Belonging [I’m a white girl with latin culture, always out of place]

Instead of writing an uplifting post about Dr. Seuss’s “day”, here I am sobbing my eyes out over my broken families and lack of true family history. Re-feeling all the rejection I have felt from EVERY facet of of my life, most times twice.

As a writer, I’m supposed to write stories that make you WANT to read what I write. Please forgive me for all the feels. I promise to write something better next time.

I don’t know if I’m freaked out that the algorithm knew I needed to read this or if the universe sent me this saying on purpose today:

Either way, I think it is a fitting reminder that it doesn’t matter if the people I love do not return their love to me, as long as I love myself. Now, I’m off for some self-care.

I am so all-consumed with story lately. Every TV show, every movie, every commercial – what is the story BEHIND the story? What pain did the author go through to arrive at the story in front of me? I don’t know if it is because I had a conversation with a few of my beta readers about a poem that I wrote while in a very dark place or something else sparked this new curiosity. These readers saw a darkness, but not my darkness, which I thought was rather interesting. So, now I am looking at everything with new wonder.

In school, I learned about looking through the written words, to the feelings, and identify my relationship with the work. My college creative writing class also taught me that the life of the author is as important in deciphering the words on the page. Yet, I never wanted to change my relationship with the work by overlaying what the author was going through when writing the work. I wanted to feel my feelings, not the feelings of the author. Now, I am revisiting my thought process here. I may be too selfish to fully immerse myself into the work.

So, now, I am off to re-immerse myself, more fully this time, into my favorites and maybe find some new ones again.

Dr. Seuss Day…

Journal #11