My Final Paper: What I know Now

What I Know Now
I have always looked at the world with an imaginative flair. As a child I could turn the average middle school day into an adventure, recapitulating the mundane into something much more. Historically, literature was the footpath on which I traveled to melodramatic and sensational places.
As a child it was not a stretch to say I was eccentric. I loved the nature, and the sublime feel of the New England Hemlock forests which surrounded my home. I longed to be the beautiful heroine in a saga which involved perilous adventures, dangerous landscapes, wizards and of course a handsome prince.
My first encounter with the fantastical was actually a twist of fate. I specifically remember one day I was waiting for my mother to pick me up afterschool (she was always late) and I found a completely battered, torn, barley readable copy of The Hobbit on the pavement in the parking lot. I had no idea that this would be the start of a four year long infatuation with the fantastical and transcendent. In the fifth grade alone I read The Lord of the Rings three times; that entire year, I would fashion my days around it. I would dress myself in bed sheets and wear necklaces as crowns which I imagined were fashioned by elves, with a technique that could not be created outside of middle earth. I bought a recreation the ring (one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them). I imagined its weight around my neck, the desire which I would have to resist. How easy it would be to slip it onto my finger and disappear. I bought the entirety of The Lord of the Rings collector edition Barbie dolls and I would play with them for hours on end, interpreting virtually every scene I had memorized.
The next year I read Robin Hood and King Arthur. I pictured myself as Guinevere or the Maid Marian, fair skinned, with long golden hair braided down my back. I would make garlands out of wildflowers and lemongrass from our gardens and weave them into my fine hair. I lived in my play house, pretending that I was Maid Marian, waiting for Robin Hood to come back from one of his adventures and passionately embrace me. I even picked up archery because I read one version of King Arthur in which Guinevere was praised for her use of the bow and arrow. I would spend hours in our forests with mine, using trees as my target but pretending as though I was rebelling against the times as a female and defending Camelot.
The year in which I turned eleven I read Harry Potter for the first time. I remember my friends eleventh birthday was on December 4th, I called her the second I woke up after her birthday to see if she had received a letter of acceptance to the school of Hogwarts, she hadn’t. Secretly, I reveled in the fact that she had not received one; it would only impress her that much more when I relieved mine on July 7th. I waited up well past midnight( the time at which they are supposed to be received) wondering if the owl meant to deliver mine had perhaps been injured, or for that matter intercepted by Voldemort since obviously I would play a part in his demise if I was accepted into the wizarding community. It never came but I continued to listen to all the books on tape every night before I went to bed. I still do to this day.
In seventh grade I read a book called The Song of the Wanderer. It was about a young girl who was unsatisfied with her life in modern times and who was whisked away into a land of fantastical creatures, mainly unicorns. My life from thereon out was to be a unicorn inquisitor. I became obsessed with unicorns. I bought Coffee table books filled with images of beautiful unicorns; I read every book I could get my hands on. I looked up markings they would leave with their horns and hooves online and in reference books and I would trek miles into our acreage looking for unicorn feces, scrapings, mating grounds and marks they would leave on the trees. I devised a theory that when the earth had flooded and the animals were sheparded onto Noah’s Ark the unicorns had simply turned into Narwhals I started a nature club at my school, though I was the only member, sometimes my sister would tag along on my adventures. I had a test for anyone who wanted to join the club in which they had to prick every finger with a thorn and if it didn’t come out in the shape of a crescent, which I believed to be a mystical symbol worn by Morgan Le Fay, a pagan goddess like figure in King Arthur, then they could not join. I also required them to stand in the coldest puddle I could find after a rain storm for ten minutes, and then they would have to duel me in a sword (stick) fighting contest, if they lost they were not worthy. The purpose of my club was to be one with nature, literally. I believed that I could communicate with trees as well as all of the other plants. The two friends that I had would have me help their mothers with the gardening; I would tell them whether or not their plants had maggots which needed to be dealt with. Though they humored me, I think I slightly annoyed even them. In retrospect I am not surprised no one else joined my club.
There was one point in which I became obsessed with Shakespearean literature, particularly, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I read the tale over and over again. I longed to live as a fairy, or at least outwit one. I built a new fairy house out of twigs, moss, pine cones and stone everyday for two months one summer, hoping fairies resided in them at the night; Holding grand balls and mystical parties. I calculated the exact night of “Midsummer” because I believed that the fairies had a grand festival on this night. I was convinced that every midsummer night the fairies would come together in a large field and drink fairy wine and dress in their finest clothes woven out of silk from spider webs and cocoons. On the night which I had calculated to be exactly in the middle of summer I snuck out of my house with a gas burning lantern and walked a mile and a half into my woods with my friend Maureen to a clearing in which I believed they would gather. The day before I had had my mother take me to a fabric store where I bought green and brown fabrics and fashioned myself a whimsical dress/ cloak which I pinned with Celtic symbols since my research had shown me that the fairy population had derived from Ireland, specifically Stonehenge. We danced in the wet grass and frolicked around well past midnight when I believed the festivities would start. Eventually, disappointed but not deterred from my belief of their existence we retreated.
By the time Eighth Grade had rolled around it was safe to say I was an outcast at our small school. I was known as the girl who wore garlands to class, leggings with unicorns and Pegasus’s on them, and capes pinned around my chest with Celtic symbols. I had two friends in my grade who were gradually losing interest in my crazy escapades and beginning to chase boys and paint their nails. I developed a very close relationship with the school librarians. I spent both lunch and recess in the library, researching anything and everything mystical. Though we were not allowed to eat in the library, they made an exception for me. They allowed me to hang posters which I had drawn of unicorns and fairies with messages promoting belief in the cryptic creatures I believed quietly inhabited this earth. One day the library was closed for recess without warning so I was forced to eat outside on the blacktop with all of the other kids. I remember all of the “popular” boys in our grade were playing a game of football on a field to the left of the basketball courts. There was a tree that they were trying to kick down because it kept getting in the way of their game. I went over kicked two of them in the shins and sat in front of the tree for the rest of recess so they could no longer kick it. I thought it deserved a peaceful death. After recess of course I was written up and sent to the principles, but no punishment came out of it, simply I think because he felt so bad for me.
Every other Friday there was a school dance for the seventh and eighth graders that went until ten. All of the cool girls in my school would talk about it all day long, and the guys would be just as excited. Little known to most of our school, on these weekends there was also the Book Club at the library. The Book Club was for fifth and sixth graders mainly, but I would work as a volunteer every other weekend, hoping to collect followers into my nature club. I never did.
Throughout the four years of middle school I had had a crush on the same guy. He lived on my street, two doors down and we had one class together. In elementary school we had been good friends and played together often, four wheeling and catching frogs at the pond. Though I liked him all throughout middle school I hadn’t had time to pursue him, but I always thought he liked me too. When we saw each other in the halls I thought he always smiled at me. I would stand at the water fountain near his locked and try to look pretty like the high school girls did in movies I was barely allowed to watch. I always imagined him asking me out, or to a dance or trying to kiss me, though I would have respectfully declined. I remember one day I was standing in line waiting to get my lunch and he got in line behind me. I was so excited; I turned around and said “Hello,” “Lindsay! He said, you still go to this school? I thought you moved like four years ago.” I was not only heartbroken, but I was confused. Was I really that much of an outcast that my own neighbor, who lived two doors down from me, who rode the bus with me on occasion, thought I had moved?
The prompt for this paper was “What do I know now, that I did not know then as a result of this class.” After this incident with the boy I liked, I didn’t exactly swear off books, but I relied on them much less. Books were quite literally my life for four years. I read at least four a week, advanced books at that. In the seventh grade I read “A Reflection on the French Revolution” By Edmund Burke, a book that I daresay many college students could not get through now. I don’t think I watched an hour of TV in those four years (with the exception of movies like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, King Arthur and Robin Hood…the Kevin Costner version obviously) My vocabulary in sixth grade was estimated to be equivocal to that of most college freshman and I had a perfect GPA, though I never did homework I talked my way through every class. However, I had virtually no friends, with the exception of the librarians who I think were more interested in me as an individual than liked me as a person. I spent my days living in a world which did not exist outside of my head. I was literally living in a fantasy world, alone. Though I was happy I did not realize how disconnected from society I was, from the people around me. I swore I would never allow myself to get to that place again. So I essentially stopped reading.
I have never been an individual who is able to live a highly balanced lifestyle. I always completely and passionately throw myself into whatever it is that I perceive to be what I love most. So when high school rolled around I passionately invested myself in the social scene. I found a new group of friends (or a group of friend’s period) for that matter and spent most of my time chasing boys, partying or whatever. I had a great time, wasting a lot of time.
Though I didn’t mention this earlier I also had an obsession with The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, I had a few different collector edition collections of their stories, as well as illustrated edition versions and used worn ones (which were my favorite because I liked to imagine what the previous owner had been like.)I sold most of these books my freshman year of high school, and put the rest in storage. I dabbled in literature after that, but spent many more afternoons either out with friends or in front of the TV watching trash shows like the OC. For reasons which had lain dormant for a long, long time, picking up a copy of Retellings and reading the syllabus for this course excited me.
I found that I loved reading the retellings of fairy tales which were strewn across the pages of this anthology. I missed imagining myself as these beautiful and complex characters. I missed inserting my own qualities into their words and descriptions. It felt so good to once again imagine myself in the scenarios presented to me in the pages of the anthology. I missed looking at the world around me and imagining how it would sound on the pages of a worn book.
I also used to love to write, I wrote poetry, short stories, and lengthier stories. I invented characters in which I used myself as the foundation, sewing my weaknesses, fears and strengths into their seams. The knowledge which I have gained from this class is not knowledge in the traditional sense of the word, but knowledge of self. I have found a place in which I can live my life both within the realms of an excellent novel and also in the real world, a place where the two feed off of each other to make life more interesting, and that is what I know that I did not know before.