When Words Become Wonders

It was at the old ripe age of four that I wrote my first story.

Here's a photo of me at that age to illustrate the tiny tornado of love that I was.

My four-year-old self rocking a cool '90s outfit. In my right hand, I'm holding a wooden puzzle that I remember to this day; in my left, a little bag from the Buenos Aires Alto Palermo Shopping Centre. The contents of the bag remain a mystery. As for what's happening to my feet, no comment.

My reading skills had made their appearance about a year earlier, to my parents' surprise. Oblivious to my academic strides, they were standing in line to see a play in a beautiful Buenos Aires theatre when they got wind of the news. "Mom," I had said inquisitively as I tugged on her coat. "What does en-sa-yo mean?" My mother explained the meaning behind the Spanish equivalent for "rehearsal," and asked me where I'd heard the word. Naturally, I pointed at a sign that read, "Rehearsal in progress. Please be quiet." She and my dad were unaware that I knew how to "sound out" letters, let alone read words, and it was in this moment that I became their favourite child. (Just kidding! I'm the middle child. Obviously, I'm not their favourite.) But I digress: Let's get back to my debut work—the story I wrote a year later.

It was, of course, a love story. It was also my first publication. Being a humble and lesser-known writer then, I didn't think I was ready for the big guns the likes of Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, or Simon & Schuster. The pressure would have been too much. I was still attending kindergarten, and my education was still my priority at the time. (Those stacking blocks weren't going to stack themselves.) So, I opted for the self-publication route.

I'm not going to lie: It was an arduous process. Carefully cutting the sheets of paper with my training scissors and gluing all the pages together with my adored Voligoma took days, if not months, off my life. Time that I shall never get back. And yet, it was worth every second—every cramped wrist, every paper cut, every glue-covered fingernail. Because at the end of this convoluted and painstaking journey, I found myself holding, in my very own hands, my very own storybook.

For the visuals, I once again chose the unpretentious road: I didn't have the monetary means to hire an illustrator, so I illustrated the whole thing myself. I picked an energetic colour palette and, using my cherished Crayola markers, went to town. While I've always been big on following rules, I let this experience be my opportunity to break barriers, blur boundaries, and, quite literally, colour outside the lines. On the first page, the reader was greeted by a bright blue sky and a cheerful, yellow sun wearing sunglasses. (I guess I gravitated towards irony and personification from an early age.) Anyway. Under the radiance of the sunny sky was a flowery green hill, on which stood a distinctly geometrical brick house with a triangular rooftop and a rectangular chimney. And this beautiful little house on the hill was the initial setting where we met the characters. So let's get into that—shall we? The characters.

Like I said, this was a love story. (Could it have been any other way?). Being the mysterious novelist that I was, I decided that my characters would not be assigned names. (I was, perhaps, unknowingly following in the footsteps of José Saramago, on my way to a Nobel Prize.) And so it was that, on that same first page, we were introduced to the protagonists of the tale.

Allow me to paint you the picture: The sun is shining. The two-dimensional, geometrical brick house is silent. Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Riiing! (Please note that my story was written in Spanish, so it is fundamental that you roll the "R" and pronounce the "i" like a "long e" as you read that, or you'll butcher the whole thing. It's pronounced "Reeng!," with the same vowel sound as in "feet," "tree," or "sheep." Please don't butcher the sound of the Spanish doorbell.) Anyway. The doorbell rings. A cheerful, two-dimensional, cartoonish young woman prances across the room and, with a flick of her wrist, swings the door open—to find standing, on the other side, a handsome (if equally cartoonish and two-dimensional) young man, holding an extravagant bouquet of flowers and smiling from ear to ear. The lovebirds become immediately spellbound by each other's gaze, and exchange the words that all adults do when greeting their significant other at the door (translated below from Spanish for your reading ease):

"Hello, girlfriend!"

"Hello, boyfriend!"

And thus began my story. A world of endless possibilities. A universe overflowing with potential. A tale waiting to be told.

Still waiting, in fact. You see, thirty years later, and I can't, for the life of me, remember if I ever finished it. I mean, yes, I did craftily bind the pages into a homemade book. And yes, the plot did "go somewhere." I just don't know exactly where. My whimsical illustrations showed the lovestruck duo setting off into the sunset and finding new horizons. There may have been a wedding at the end of the tale. (Of course.) I just don't remember the plot progressing through any type of... conflict. Ever. In other words, the real story may still be waiting to take flight.

And as I think about my tale and its elusive plot, I can't help but wonder what happened to those two lovely (albeit flat and nameless) characters as their story evolved. Did they realize just how much depth they both lacked? (Get it? Because their characters lacked depth and they were two-dimensional? Ah. I crack myself up.) Did the couple have to work through any challenges? What were their challenges? How did they solve them? Did the young woman appreciate the young man standing before her, bringing her flowers and ultimately declaring his love for her? I remember the one time that I, as a real-life young adult on a real-life date, was given a flower. A rose. A beautiful, vibrant, thorn-free, red rose. And I also remember thinking, "What am I supposed to do with this?" as I graciously accepted the item that would become a nuisance throughout the entirety of our lunch and stroll downtown. That was over a decade ago. Now, as a still-young-although-less-young young adult, I find myself yearning to be in the shoes of my character, opening the door to find a handsome, smiling guy bringing me flowers, saying "Hi, girlfriend," and ultimately declaring his love for me. Preferably in the shape of a human and not a hand-drawn cartoon. (Universe, can you hear me?).

So, as I think about these two characters, I begin to imagine a variety of ways in which my story could have unfolded. The reality is that I can't remember the plot beyond the first few pages and the eventual wedding. But I do remember the love that I felt for this story—because, for the very first time, I had written one all on my own. I could see my imagination come to life on paper. And that made me so happy. And as I ponder this, it hits me: My passion for writing emerged from the depths of the joy of my early childhood. As I sit now at my desk, pounding away at my computer keyboard, I am reminded of all those afternoons I spent sitting on the floor, in the company of my stuffed animals, writing and drawing on blank pages with a marker, a steady hand, and an array of grammatical errors to which I was blissfully oblivious. I am reminded of the joy and pride that I felt upon showing my very own storybook to my grandparents—my best audience—as they sat on the couch of our living room. And I am immediately reminded of the joy and pride that they felt upon seeing it, beaming and smiling like the good sports they were. And, as I think back to those moments, I come to a realization.

I realize that—alright—perhaps the marker-illustrated story that I wrote as a youngster was not quite on the same level as Saramago's Nobel-Prize–winning Blindness. Perhaps the plot of my tale was not the most memorable. (It clearly wasn't, or I might still recall the inciting incident, climax, or resolution. There likely was no inciting incident. Like most four-year-olds, I viewed the world in a rose-coloured light, and had not yet mastered Freytag's pyramid.) So—perhaps my story was not quite ready for the likes of Random House, HarperCollins, or Simon & Schuster after all. And yet, my storybook did something for me much more powerful than any accolade ever could: It allowed me to take my first steps as a storyteller, and to do so with joy. It allowed me to create one of the happiest memories of my childhood. And it taught me that I was, at my core, a writer. Even if I didn't know it yet.

I don't know what happened to my treasured storybook. It's been three decades since I brought it to this world, and I'm afraid it was abandoned in an alley somewhere when we left Argentina during my early adolescence. (Okay, not an alley. A moving truck? Shipping container? I don't know. I'm just trying to add oomph.) But all joking aside, when you move countries, you learn to say goodbye a lot. The goodbyes to your loved ones are the hardest of all. As a thirteen-year-old, I found it impossible to say goodbye to my grandparents, my biggest cheerleaders—the same ones who, roughly ten years earlier, had sat patiently on our couch as I read them my masterpiece of a story. So—goodbyes to loved ones are the hardest. Material things, after all, can be replaced.

There are certain objects, however, that in the span of an instant will bring you back to a specific time and place—a moment of pure wonder, if you are lucky—simply because of the memories that they hold. My storybook was one of them. And saying goodbye to such objects is not always easy. With the passing of time, I went on to do bigger and better things in the world of the written word, each accomplishment reinforcing my love for writing a bit more. Yet that book will remain one of the dearest staples of my childhood, and of my writing journey. Inside those pages were not only words and drawings, but moments that helped to shape me into the person and writer I am today. While I may no longer have the book, I still hold onto the joy that it brought me. To vaguely quote a wise old lady: "I don't even have a photo of it. It exists now... only in my memory." The fact is that, while I may never know what became of my cherished, handcrafted book of wonder, I do know that it will always hold a special place in my heart. And, if I'm lucky enough, maybe one day I will be the one sitting on the couch, next to my husband, beaming and smiling as our grandchild show us their very own handmade book of wonder.