No quote has ever been more true to me.

Writing is the only thing that has always come completely naturally to me.

I remember when I was much too young to read, I would pretend that I was reading and move my lips convincingly while scanning the completely foreign letters on the pages of any book that looked plump and beyond my years. I was a little girl who was very anxious to know things about stuff.

I spent my childhood in the back of my mother’s 1970 Buick station wagon, where we glided through the tangerine smog of Los Angeles, going here, then there, sometimes in city traffic, but usually not. Some of my earliest childhood memories were etched in the back of that land vessel. My longing to read was strong and early and I practiced in that backseat, passenger side, my brother sat behind my mom, because you know, there is a permanent and nonnegotiable seat order in family vehicles. At a red light, I would hope to impress someone in a car next to us with my early reading prowess. I would lean against the window and pretend to read anything; a Fedco flyer, a book of Blue Chip stamps, even a thick flame-licked paperback of Dianetics because that book was everywhere back then and passed out free and furiously like Hollywood handshakes. Everyone had a copy, but nobody purchased it.

Soon, I would move on to more age appropriate reading material, I See Sam books. Tiny, yellow pamphlets of first words and black drawings for kindergartners. I loved those little books, the first to teach me to sound out, string syllables into words and sentences, then wrangle and release paragraphs with confidence. In the backseat of the station wagon, I would continue to read, but as my reading ability improved, moving my lips for neighboring drivers was not necessary.

Once I learned to read, I never stopped. Reading was and still is, my favorite escape. Then the writing came, suddenly involuntary, outside of school assignments. I wrote often, scraggly, lefty-smudged torrents of prepubescent drama and rainfall.

One boring Sunday morning when I was in my early teens, I stopped in our home’s hallway to peruse the double bookshelf that had always been there. Old tomes with dark bindings sealed in place by time and dust, rarely moved intentionally. I spied the squat old Dianetics paperback smashed painfully between dozens of tall art books, an Edgar Alan Poe trilogy and the ivory-clad A-Z Encyclopedia Britannica.

I pulled out the soft thick paperback book. A raisin among wine bottles. Somehow, I was still curious about its contents, mostly because the cover was so molten and menacing. I sat on the couch, cracked the book open randomly and began to read the words of L. Ron Hubbard, whoever he was. After a few minutes, it took me back in time to the backseat of our old wood-paneled station wagon. As I read, I began to move my lips, very convincingly if someone next to me at a red light was watching, I’m sure, but truthfully, only because I had no idea what I was reading.