It was my island, not large, but was bathed in warm sunlight and dappled shade when it got too hot. Apart from the occasional bird cheeping it was quiet, and far enough away from others that they drifted completely out of my thoughts. The air was pine scented, and the trees caught the breezes, together two created a music of sorts, it formed the soundtrack of my life for a few years.
The hours I spent there still linger within that private place in my mind reserved for fond memories and, even now, many years later, I sometimes yearn for that place, that island of peaceful solitude.
I was nine years old when my island revealed itself and I claimed it as my own guarding its secret carefully, reluctant to have to share it.
My island was the top of a big car garage right alongside a stand of huge pine trees.
I'd been climbing one of those trees and, as nine year-old's do, decided to make my way onto the roof for a little exploration. Once there I found a nice thick bed of old pine needles which insulated the hot roof, a good deal of shade from the over-hanging pine tree branches and a gently sloping roof ideal for sitting and laying on. It seemed to be a perfect place for me to hide away from everyone else, namely my older brother (the only sibling I had at the time) and my parents; It gave me the space to process things, to rage about the way I was treated and how that made me feel.
I wasn't to know at the time of course, but that spot was to become one of the most important places to me as a kid, and here I am forty one years later still recalling it with a fondness based around its importance and impact upon my young life.
I was quite badly bullied and victimised as a kid; It started as soon as I went to school and I hated my parents for making me go back each day. I hated school and couldn't wait to get home and away from the source of all that pain and suffering.
One good part about school happened a couple years later when one of my teachers read the class a book called The hobbit, by J.R.R Tolkien.
The name sounded funny but from the first moment she began I was hooked, enchanted, and carried away from all of the terrible things I was subjected to in the real world.
The teacher read the book over the course of a few weeks and it was the only part of school I was interested in, probably because in my head I wasn't there, I was in Middle Earth with the hobbits.
Once finished I asked her if I could borrow it. Maybe she felt sorry for the little brownish kid that got picked on all the time; I don't know, but she handed it over and I carried it home with great care feeling privileged to be in possession of such a wondrous book, the teachers personal copy.
That weekend found me up on that roof, my island, with some dried nuts and raisins for snacks, my school drink bottle full of lemon cordial and that book.
I can remember looking at the cover, the picture, and feeling my excitement growing knowing what was inside the covers, but also eager to discover it with my own eyes, and the pictures I would create in my mind...I opened it and the world of reading began.
That started my love affair with reading and on days where the weather permitted, and a good deal that didn't, I was up on that roof reading. The Hobbit, then the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, curiously, Alex Haley's Roots was the next. To this day I devour books as if my life depends upon them. It wasn't that I hadn't read before that moment, I was a good reader, but nothing captured me as this book had.
I didn't always wait until I got up to that spot, but it became a favourite place, an escape, a place to go and read, be carried away from whatever was going on in my real life and become transported into the book I was reading. When I got tired I'd put the book down, lay back and watch the clouds, scoot by whilst listening to the breeze in the pine trees, and breathing that fresh pine-scented air that seems so energised and soothing simultaneously.
My island was a portal, not just a simple garage roof, it took me anywhere and everywhere.
I don't think I had a bad childhood. I grew up on a large property with plenty of mischief to find, (and I found it), my parents did the best they could to teach me right from wrong, and provide for me. There wasn't much, just enough mostly. I didn't enjoy school of course, it was a terrible experience for me, largely why people have to work so hard to gain my trust these days; I made life about everything else though, it made that vilification, emotional and physical torment tolerable, or at least less painful at times.
I remember many things about my childhood with great fondness and finding my passion for reading sits prominently amongst them. Of course no memory about me finding books could be complete without my spot up on that roof as I spent so much time there with books of all sorts.
I'd go there when I couldn't face the world and escape to someone else's and you know, it's kind of funny now, thinking about it these days at times when I'm a little stressed, it brings me a little clarity and peace, all these years later.
I can't go to my island anymore as my parents sold the property some years ago, but when I pick up a book, settle myself down in a quiet spot and start reading it's like I'm there all over again and the act of reading brings me the same feelings and value it always did.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised.
Be well
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Did you ever take anyone else up there?
Not that I can recall Matt, it was pretty much my place. I gre up in a small town north of Adelaide on a fairly large property so there was plenty of spots to go, this was one of mine and my older brother didn't encroach. At first my parents didn't like I was up there, but after a few weeks they worked it out but seemed happy for me to spend time up there. They knew what I was going through at school so figured I wanted to be away from people I guess.
I didn't mind school very much, I was fine with it. I did struggle to learn to read however, it took a little bit, but once I got the hang of it, I was gone. I got a library card, and started borrowing books. I loved the travels those books would take me on. I read a lot of Asimov, and other sci-fi fantasy stories, and I still to this day love them. I did not like the biographical books that school made us read, but I read them, and yes when SHTF it is nice to grab a book or a well known trilogy and read again. My go to books when I've had enough of life's complications is W.M. Gears Spider trilogy, I read it about once a year since it was issued back in 1988 and 89. For me that series has stood the test of time. I can still see Letta Dobra running through the bayonet grass her feet being torn to shreds as John Iron Eyes comes swooping in on his horse to lift her up and whisk her away to safety.
My parents did the flash-card thing with us before we went to school so I was already reading a little, but as I got better at it I craved books, as you say, they would take me to somewhere else, transport me without e having to even move. It felt like running away a little I guess. Considering the way I was treated at school, the library was where I spent a lot of time - Probably sounds quite pathetic to other people, but for me it was self-reservation. Now, it's probably why I am so distrustful of, and disinterested, in people.
My dad was on the Asimov. Loved his sci-fi, and even wrote one (unpublished, that I actually still have, the manuscript.)
I've read so many different genres but have to cite Fantasy as my favourite. Tolkien of course, and Raymond E. Feist being my go-to authors. Like you, I've read their books many times over. These days I read a lot of historical books, and of course much military stuff.
Your last line...Just that descriptive sentence shows me how indelibly etched the memory of that series is within your mind, and how important a part of your that trilogy has been.
I'm many things mate, some good and some bad, but imaginative is certainly one of the good things and I'm fortunate to have imagination-enough to allow books to carry me away to other places.
Great reply you left me. Thank you.
!ENGAGE 50
ENGAGEtokens.I was particularly hooked on Historical Romances from the bargain bin specials of a local used book store during my post teen years. A lot better than going to the movie theaters. I may still have a few still stacked in my library. Cheap thrills!
There's certainly nothing wrong with cheap thrills every now and then...Free ones are better, but cheap certainly works!
I sometimes buy books from Savers, a recycling superstore here. (I think maybe an American thing though?) Anyway, I go through so many that I tend to get maybe 50% of them from there provided they have what I want of course. I pay around $2.50-$3.50 each then take them back and donate them back for someone else to buy. I have an extensive library of my own however, hundreds and hundreds of books, and usually get them online these days, the new ones I mean.
Thanks for commenting.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Everyone needs a place like that!
Mine used to be in a section of jungle around the school that's now been exposed due to expansion. There was a derelict old building that was technically out of bounds but was the "doorway" in (you could totally just go around the damn derelict wreck of a building and that was probably a lot safer but not nearly as much fun). I didn't read up there but would often just go in there and sit for ages with my dog listening to and watching birds and how the light came down through the leaves. Can't even remember what I used to think about now but I could be there for ages.
Ergh your school experience. I didn't have that growing up but can't say the same for the Indian kid and the tiny handful of white kids in my predominantly Asian school. I never did anything about what I saw because I was tiny and stupid and didn't know why "everyone" (in reality just a small loud handful of kids) being mean to them or what those kids had done to deserve that treatment (did they have a fight perhaps? Sometimes kids would havew arguments and it would last for days which is forever when you're tiny and stupid). Fortunately in this case it didn't last forever and by high school everyone was friends or at least cheerfully tolerant of each other.
I could have done without school anyway, such a waste of 12 years XD
I remember when I used to be such an avid reader. Hive is about the extent of my reading now >_> on the one hand I really should read more, but if I read and watched nearly as much as I should be I would never get any of my own work done XD
I was lucky to have a few spots to retreat to. I wasn't a loner though, just preferred my own company to the alternative. I was a thinker, quite emotional and in-touch, and so solitude worked. I am still the same although with Faith it's different as we do it together, both preferring the same thing. We've got a few spots we go to, block out the world...Keeps us sane.
School was shit. It got better in high school but being brown, funny name...I was an easy target...Until I almost ended someone in high school and they people just did it behind my back from that point. It was stupid and hurtful. Walking into the common room in year 12 with my school bag hanging on the side of one of those mobile blackboards with some words scrawled across it, not nice ones, with people laughing and others too afraid to get involved...Changes a person, but I had been dealing with it for 12 years. Built character though and now it's like nothing at all.
I guess I am who I am now because of it. I'm pretty mentally tough and from a physical perspective have made sure I'm not an easy victim...It's also taught me patience, kindness and tolerance.
I'm happy with who I am, and understand very clearly that bullies are far more broken than I could ever be.
The dumbarses who thought your name was funny wouldn't have been able to cope at my school XD I remember walking around uni one time with my leavers' shirt from the high school back home (not the high school here which I really didn't like) and one of the other freshly out of high school kids that was in one of my classes noticed it was a leavers shirt and immediately had to read the names on the back like they would know anyone and after failing at pronouncing several of the names, said that they were "weird" names. I turned around with dead eyes and said they were perfectly normal Chinese and Malay names.
I guess I'm glad it was character building for you, or that you were at least able to benefit from it (because while I don't like that it happened at all it is was it was). I have friends who were also bullied (some really freaking terribly I can't even) at school and it took them literal decades to start recovering.
Look at the manes around Australia now, in mainstream population...Back in my day in primary school (1970's) it would have been unheard of.
Yeah, I made it work to my advantage, but I understand that many do not, and did not, and so suffer lasting damage. I'm not one of those. Confident, happy with myself, fun, humorous, respectful etc. Yeah, I think I came out ok.
J.R.R. Tolkien was my favorite author as well in my school years. My experience was quite a bit different, though.
While I loved and excelled in school until 8th grade, I didn't like to read. I was always in the highest level math and science classes, but only the average to slightly below average levels for English Class.
I was introduced to The Hobbit through the animated movie while in elementary school and it stuck with me for life. It wasn't until late in high school that I read the books and found out there was so much more than just the one adventure. I read them over and over.
Then the blockbuster movies came out and I was blown away. I couldn't believe how close the visuals were to those my mind had created, especially the Ents. This is because of how great of an author Tolkien is of course.
Thank you for bringing me back to my own little island.
I know many who don't read, or don't like to. My wife wasn't much of a reader when we met and it wasn't until years later that she found a series, Outlander, that she liked enough to read consistently. She's not as big a reader as myself but will certainly do so.
Sometimes reading comes late to people, although I also feel it comes down to what people read. If the topic isn't interesting bro the person then they're unlikely to read it I guess.
You know, I waited for so long for the LOTR movies and was blown away by them. I love that series and everytime I read them I find something new.
When in Oxford UK a couple years ago we went to a Tolkien exhibition which was fantastic to see, a collection of writings and drawings displayed at the Ashmolean. Fascinating. We have also been to NZ to some of the film locations from the movies. Big fans! 🙂
Great reply, thank you.
!ENGAGE 50
ENGAGEtokens.Such a place would be something magical.
I loved this trip down memory lane to that island.
I never read this English word before so I had to go look it up. vilification - verwoesting in my native language of Afrikaans. A strong word very sad to use as a description of your experience.
Luckily it's in the past and now you can only visit the good from the past
Hi there, thanks for your reply. Reading has long been a happy past time for me and is something I return to daily to find a little relaxation and to create a buffer between my working life and my real life.
Have a good week.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.