Counting the Pages

     Summer had just begun; the warmth overwhelmed everyone in the block. I had just moved to my father’s new home. It was simple and modest but I really enjoyed it. Sitting down on the wooden chair next to the small table I grabbed my summer reading assignment. Recalling to what my parents told me about the importance of learning English and how it is better for the youth to learn faster than the adults. His explanation was based on the idea than when you are an adult, it is difficult to learn a new language but not impossible since work is time consuming it makes it even less probable to learn it. Supporting his idea, my mother said that the younger learn it faster because we are exposed directly to the language and that my little brother and I should take advantage of it. Although I can still picture the first book I have ever read in English, it still brings me memories of the difficulties and the amount of time I had put, especially during that the summer.

     At this moment I was going through a phase and my only desire, the one I only wanted to have, was to be left alone. It was some sort of resentment, originally because my parents split up that summer and my dad chose to move onto another life, but he wanted to take us. This limited my ways of communicating to people, it created a mental restriction that I was conscious of, just because I wanted to talk to nobody and my anger was frustrating. Anyways, I had to go school, because I had been a very hard working student since my childhood years so improvement had to be a decision. At that moment I told my aunt, who was always willing to take me to places in order for me to get to know more about society and the way it is lived, to take me to the library. My aunt was really charismatic. I lived near Jackson Heights so she took me to the local public library. I couldn’t speak a word in English; however, I was able to understand some of it. I became somewhat dependent on the people that already knew how to speak English and this situation made me feel bad but it felt comfortable and safe.

     Searching through all the books from the summer reading assignment felt like an adventure. I had to go to many different branches to find little young adult books, kids’ novels and books. They were all checked out. The summer had three weeks to end but people already had taken the books out. Nevertheless, there was one last book that was still on list that was available, it was “Missing May” by Cynthia Rylant. Getting home after a whole day of spending time through the shelves of the library, I unpacked my book bag and took the book out of my bag. I remember examining it for a while and I started reading it without understanding anything till I fall asleep. My father and my aunt were busy working, I had no other choice but to ask my dad what I should do about it. His answer was concise, “Ask your stepmother”. Though, those words kind of felt a bit uncomfortable because I always rejected the idea of separate families but reality just seemed so important at this moment, I couldn’t reject the idea that it might be of some help. In some ways, literacy and my willing to learn helped me break this barrier I had towards other relationships and made me more comfortable into sharing my ideas and the reason why I was angry towards this concept of separation and divorce.

     From there on, I asked her every day until I finish the book, to go line by line together. The meanings of the words and the phrases were sticking in my memory and soon I was able to comprehend many scenarios presented in the book. My gratefulness had to be shown somehow, the book was finally getting easier for me to understand. However, it took me a while to adapt to this type of teaching. Line-by-line, being interpreted and translated to me from English to Spanish was for me the easiest method to connect the words and make up a good sentence out of those. Being such a small book, after my session of reading I would count the pages to see how much left for me to finish learn something and it never seemed to end. My process of learning literacy was different from others or maybe in some aspects, it was similar, the case is that I was able to experience the change within myself and approach a new level of understanding. Although I might say that now it kind of drove me away from my parents, that is the final goal, to become independent but preserving the root language which makes the old connections with family very welcoming and mutual.