Fandom Snowflake: Challenge 13 Memory
Jan. 25th, 2022 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithChallenge 13.
In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, wild times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
My mother read me The Hobbit when I was four. I can still recite the beginning from memory:
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Of course, my parents read to me constantly. They read all kinds of things, but a few of them stand out, and that's one of the most important.
We had squeezed onto the couch together, lying down, and I was getting big enough that we just barely fit. I felt like I was about to fall off, so I kept squirming around trying to find a more comfortable position. Mom thought that meant I wasn't enjoying the book and asked if I wanted to stop. I insisted that I was enjoying it and just needed a better position. So we wriggled around a bit to find something more secure, and we went on reading. You could say ... something Tookish woke in me.
I exist as much in that moment as in this one. Time is not linear.
That experience did a lot to remind me of who I am and what I do. It's part of my love for storytelling and adventure, food and song and cheer, family and teamfamily, poetry, xenolinguistics, worldbuilding, and the awareness that war is usually not worth the cost. It's why I still refer to a museum as a "mathom-house" and occasionally buy things for other people on my birthday. It's where I learned the hurt/comfort ratchet, because every hardship is followed by some chance to rest and recover. That way you can crank the tension much higher without breaking either the characters or the audience.
By first grade, I was reading adult books; probably before then, but I'm sure of that point. In third grade, I read The Lord of the Rings. I was always bored in reading class, so I was reading that under my desk. The teacher grabbed the book out of my hands and said that I couldn't possibly be reading it. I launched into an enthusiastic description of "The Departure of Boromir." The little kids all turned to stare at me, horrified, their eyes as wide as saucers. The teacher handed the book back to me and admitted that if I was reading that, I didn't need "reading class," and I should just read quietly whatever I wanted. She's the only person who ever did that. It was one of many signs that I really wasn't coming at things from the same angle as other people.
These are scenes in my life, as real as the current one. I live in the past as much as the present. Sometimes, like Bilbo dashing out his door, I get a sense that a moment, a decision, is particularly meaningful; a glimpse into a future, or different futures, depending on that choice. A chance to change things, to make a difference, and to do so mindfully. Part of that comes from storytelling, from the ability to parse a sequence of events as a plot with branches and choices.
My mother passed away in December, but in this, she is still with me. Time is not linear.
In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, wild times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
My mother read me The Hobbit when I was four. I can still recite the beginning from memory:
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Of course, my parents read to me constantly. They read all kinds of things, but a few of them stand out, and that's one of the most important.
We had squeezed onto the couch together, lying down, and I was getting big enough that we just barely fit. I felt like I was about to fall off, so I kept squirming around trying to find a more comfortable position. Mom thought that meant I wasn't enjoying the book and asked if I wanted to stop. I insisted that I was enjoying it and just needed a better position. So we wriggled around a bit to find something more secure, and we went on reading. You could say ... something Tookish woke in me.
I exist as much in that moment as in this one. Time is not linear.
That experience did a lot to remind me of who I am and what I do. It's part of my love for storytelling and adventure, food and song and cheer, family and teamfamily, poetry, xenolinguistics, worldbuilding, and the awareness that war is usually not worth the cost. It's why I still refer to a museum as a "mathom-house" and occasionally buy things for other people on my birthday. It's where I learned the hurt/comfort ratchet, because every hardship is followed by some chance to rest and recover. That way you can crank the tension much higher without breaking either the characters or the audience.
By first grade, I was reading adult books; probably before then, but I'm sure of that point. In third grade, I read The Lord of the Rings. I was always bored in reading class, so I was reading that under my desk. The teacher grabbed the book out of my hands and said that I couldn't possibly be reading it. I launched into an enthusiastic description of "The Departure of Boromir." The little kids all turned to stare at me, horrified, their eyes as wide as saucers. The teacher handed the book back to me and admitted that if I was reading that, I didn't need "reading class," and I should just read quietly whatever I wanted. She's the only person who ever did that. It was one of many signs that I really wasn't coming at things from the same angle as other people.
These are scenes in my life, as real as the current one. I live in the past as much as the present. Sometimes, like Bilbo dashing out his door, I get a sense that a moment, a decision, is particularly meaningful; a glimpse into a future, or different futures, depending on that choice. A chance to change things, to make a difference, and to do so mindfully. Part of that comes from storytelling, from the ability to parse a sequence of events as a plot with branches and choices.
My mother passed away in December, but in this, she is still with me. Time is not linear.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-25 05:06 pm (UTC)Your parents obviously released a love of reading that's steered you well throughout life.
My mother passed away in December, but in this, she is still with me. Time is not linear.
I'm so glad she remains close ♥
Thank you!
From:(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-25 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-25 09:35 pm (UTC)I can't say I exist as much in some other moment as now, but to my parents' disappoinment I've never been great at living in the now, either. I've improved my productive imagining to catastrophizing ratio, thanks therapy and life experience. But I'm still stuck on things that happened twenty years ago. I know healing from trauma is like that, but I'm frustrated. And feeling guilty for whining so much (of course, I've always felt that way, if feeling like your problems are Not Enough and you're just being difficult is not in the DSM as a trauma response it should be. But there's gotta be a point where it's true.). Even with therapy and self-help articles and whatnot, getting over anything on purpose has never gone well for me.
I don't remember my parents reading to me. They definitely did, but after I learned at like 4 or 5,a combination of my impatience and them encouraging me to Be Mature led to that not being a thing, I think. Or I forgot, my memory of being a small child is not much.
Damn it, I know we had good days, but no nice story comes to mind at present.
Thoughts
From:Re: Thoughts
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