I was dreamy in high school, and I was no scholar in grade school, either.
After an exhausting childhood, I floated through each dreary awkward rainy day in Oregon, where I grew up, until I left for college. I did, however read a good deal, and by this I mean, I read voluminous amounts. In many ways, I wasn’t really sitting in my room on Woodscape Drive, or in the library at Sprague High School, but in a New York City Apartment with my favorite author Laurie Colwin, or hiding in the short stories of Checkov, or the novels of Dostoyevsky. After, I worked my way through the Bronte sisters, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, I then peered curiously into a giant volume of the complete works of William Shakespeare, which I later studied in England. I even went there, to Stratford-upon-Avon where he wrote, and lived in the 16th century.
Regardless, of my uninspiring high school education, I landed as a freshman at Oregon State University very well read. Which eventually made me a very good writer and an honor roll student.
Nothing is ever lost, and no time spent self educating, no matter how unstructured, is without value.
My daughter has inherited both my love of reading and the writing gene, she told me, she wants to go to college and simply read.
And I hope she does.
Love and blessings to all.
