and I was all, "What's the big deal? I've always been able to read." Which from my perspective, I have--I can't remember a time before I learned.
I vividly remember the first word I read.
I was traveling in Europe after college (this part is a fast-forward) and after a month in English speaking countries and France I got to Italy. I got off the train farily late at night in a pretty dodgy part of Rome. I hadn't been able to connect with the friend I was supposed to stay with, I hadn't really eaten or slept much in about a day and a half, and I was wandering around Termini Station fairly bewildered trying to figure out what the hell to do.
I had studied French in HS and it had deteriorated considerably by then. In France I had been beating myself up for letting it slip, but I very suddenly realized that I had gotten along JUST FINE in French -- here I was lost. In France, if I stared at words for a few seconds they'd start to make at least enough sense for me to get the gist. In Italy I could look at a sign all day and it meant nothing. I looked from sign to sign to sign and had the very trippy experience of seeing letters I knew perfectly well and having them make zero sense.
Suddenly, I flashed on being three or four and sitting in my grandparents claw-foot tub and looking up at the shelf and reading the words "baby powder." I can feel it right now -- surrounded by water, staring at letters and having them make the words "baby powder." Then "Johnson & Johnson" "Mr. Bubbles" "Listerine" (not the green stuff, the brown cylindrical bottle with the big paper wrapper). It was a total eureka moment and it all came rushing back to me in a big noisy train station in Italy nearly two decades later.
It's reason 4,216 Lilty should go to Europe.
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