30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 6

According to family legend, I taught myself how to read at age three. I don't specifically remember how old I was, but I do remember sitting in the living room of a house I barely lived in with a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, something clicking -- some conscious understanding that all those little letters meant something, and I could decode their message.

I have a late-August birthday, which meant that, when it came time for kindergarten, my parents could choose whether to send me on or wait another year. They opted for the latter. Although I think ultimately this was the right choice -- after all, even at nearly-nineteen, I didn't feel ready for college, either -- it also led to a lot of boredom in school. I was automatically placed in the Academically Gifted program, but it was rare that the "special" assignments interested me; instead, I turned to books.

I always read books that were several grade levels ahead of me, often going to my older brother's reading lists for suggestions. I truly loved to read. You could stand a foot away from me and loudly say my name, but if I was absorbed in a book, I didn't hear you. I read constantly, often camping out in the living room even on beautiful summer days so I could finish le livre du jour.

When I hit high school, something changed. I think part of it was the much more pronounced pressure to earn good grades, but a lot of it was logistical: I participated in multiple weekly dance classes, I worked fifteen to twenty-five hours a week at a retail job, I was in honors and AP classes, and I had to be at school at 7:15 am. I don't know if the root cause was anxiety or undiagnosed A.D.D. or exhaustion or some combination of the above, but after awhile, I sort of gave up; I didn't finish half my reading assignments for school, so where the hell would I find time to read for pleasure?

It only got worse in college. By the time I graduated, I had nearly forgotten how to get lost in a story the way I once did. I still read occasionally, of course -- Kurt Vonnegut while working the ticket booth at Bill's Bar; D.H. Lawrence and Gabriel Garcia Marquez on the T; Aldous Huxley on the beaches of Thailand -- but I always got distracted or fell asleep before the chapter ended. I started many books that I never finished.

Koh Ang Thong, Thailand; June, 2008.

There is one book, however, that I did manage to finish for school, one that I have read innumerable times and that never fails to remind me of why I love to read: Le Petit Prince. I had never heard of it until I read it in my senior French class in high school, but it completely captivated my heart from the first page.

So once I'd crossed over into the world of tattoos with my best friend just before entering college, it didn't take me long to come up with my next piece of body art.

As I get older -- and thus relate more to the narrator than the hero -- I only love the book more. I'm so completely obsessed with it, in fact, that I decided to be the little prince for Halloween. Admittedly, not everyone got the reference, but those who did were delighted, which kept a perpetual grin on my face both nights I wore the costume. I don't know how I'll top this next Halloween -- or how I'll find a way to express my infinite love for this book any more than I already have.

Top: me on Halloween (with TJ's/my dog, Memphis, as the tamed fox); 2011. Bottom: the illustration on which the costume was based.

For now, I plan to expose everyone, adult and kid alike, who has never read this absolutely marvelous book to its timeless charm. I mean, seriously y'all, it's kind of perfect. If you're reading this and you have no idea what I'm talking about... I beg you, read it!

For now, here's a preview (part of which is a translation of one of the quotations in my tattoo)...

"Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."