“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” — Harper Lee
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People used to ask me how I figured out what I want to do with my life and how I decided on it so quickly, and I would say I’ve always known. I can’t remember a time I didn’t know I wanted to write for a living. Sometimes it was journalism, sometimes it was poetry, and most of the time, it was books. I was in love with books, and for the better part of my life, I knew I wanted to be a novelist.
There isn’t a moment I can pinpoint that I fell in love with novels and knew I wanted to write one, but there is a moment I remember feeling very alone in that desire. Where I went to high school, there was something funny in the air that made everyone a “math person” instead of an “English person,” and it made me feel immeasurably alone.
One of the greatest English teachers I had taught me sophomore year. My seat was in the back left of the class, two rows up, right by the windows, when we first started reading To Kill A Mockingbird. The teacher passed out tattered old school-property copies of the book to all of us, and within the week I’d gone out to the bookstore an hour away from home to get my own brand new edition.
I met Scout and Jem and Atticus Finch in a harshly lit classroom as we took turns reading out loud, and I fell in love with them by the dim light of my phone in my bedroom as I stayed up far too late doing what we’d been told not to do: read ahead.
Millions of people are mourning Harper Lee today, and though she was not the reason I realized I want to write, she is one of the reasons I stayed. With so many other options that seem to be more realistic career paths to follow, it’s hard to remember sometimes why I stick so hard and fast to this one wonderful thing. I love it, but is it enough?
I think of that 14-year-old version of myself sitting in the back of her favorite class listening to her teacher read a biography of Harper Lee to an unenthusiastic audience, and I think of my hand shooting into the air to give my opinions on TKAM, and I think of when I felt alone at college for the first time so I walked to the bookstore and picked up a copy of Go Set a Watchman.
I think of the 16-year-old version of myself who stood up in class and said she wanted to be a novelist and was laughed at but didn’t care because she knew better. She knew others had done it, and she knew it’d be hard, but she knew better than anyone in that room what she wanted to do and who she wanted to be.
The Finches embodied the most wonderful characteristics of humanity. Blind optimism. Intelligence. Determination. Curiosity. Hope. Strength. If her writing didn’t change my life, the attitudes of the characters she created did.
Thank you, Harper Lee, for writing words that shook the world of a 14-year-old girl, and for creating people in your brilliant mind that truly lived and breathed in all of us, and will continue to long after today.
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“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” — Harper Lee