From “Creak Creak” to “Swoosh” (Revised)
Creak Creak
In the corner of my old bedroom lay a huge pile of childhood doodles. Rough yet ingenious, they were the “milestones” that marked the first readings I ever accomplished in my life. Not even fully understanding what those large, intimidating Chinese characters meant, I was so drawn to my picture books for the exquisite illustrations they held within. I could lie on the floor for hours just to copy a picture of Pinocchio while sitting in front of the piano for ten minutes was already torturous for me.
My mom liked everything in her house organized, so all my books were placed neatly on a shelf that was too tall for a 37-inch little girl to reach. Thus, I had to climb up this wooden little ladder every time I wanted to read, and this “creak creak” sound it made was so pleasing because it meant that I got to read something new.
As my collection of facsimiles piled up, I became better at drawing, and of course, at reading. The idea of creating my own stories, naturally, bloomed in my head. The writing process turned out to be unexpectedly hard, but I managed to find a way – when I couldn’t think of the right wording, I drew to complement my texts, and I wrote when drawing was too hard for me. There was this magical bond between the visuals and the written words that I, as a little girl, did not understand yet knew it subconsciously. By combining texts and images, I successfully created many stories throughout my childhood, until the “creak creak” sound was no longer heard…
Tac Tac
This peak of creativeness was brought to an abrupt end when I entered middle school. Reading without images became tedious and daunting. Writing, on the other hand, was restricted by the required structures and topics written on board. There was no room for creativity. Whenever my thoughts struggled to break free from the iron chains, hopping and flapping desperately to find a way out, they always ended up hitting the towering walls of rules, wounded.
“Tac tac”
This was the sound of me pressing the delete key.
“Tac tac”
I was trying to write something new.
“Tac tac”
I was deleting it again.
I can still recall those late nights when I watched the cursor blinking and ticking on my screen like the countdown of a time bomb.
Am I really passionate about reading and writing? Or is it just because of the imagery that came with them, without which my “fragile” passion would collapse all at once?
These questions kept spinning around in my head that for a brief moment, I thought I would never want to read or write anymore.
In times of struggle, I picked up my paintbrush again. When asked to analyze literary works, I turned large blocks of texts into colorful mind charts so that I could catch up with the author’s pace. I pulled off a spider diagram every time I started an essay so my ideas stayed organized, and my little drawings on the side never failed to bring those originally dull assignments to life. I now realized that images and words were not independent entities and the power they held within was enormous. It turned out that this spark of creativity of combining visuals and alphabet had never extinguished in me, and I finally found a way to make it shine.
Swoosh
Entering high school, the tiny spark burned into blazing flames. My friends and I founded a subscription account on WeChat through which we shared original articles on all sorts of topics we were interested in. With the help of technology, I was able to edit my posts by inserting explanatory images in texts and publish them online for more people to read. Every time I click on the “publish” button, a “swoosh” sound will carry my thoughts to the public, bringing me the excitement of making an influence. I remember how my review on a romantic film got people commenting “I will definitely go check it out,” and how the article ranking the top 10 weirdest college mascots made them laugh. I remember particularly clear that my visual analysis of the Disney film Up caused a sensational discussion. Some agreed with me that early Disney movies implanted the ideas of consumerism and male dominance. Some argued that I over-interpreted the film. Either way, it surprised me how my posts brought so many people together to share their thoughts on the same issue, and this was only made possible by the incorporation of both texts and images.
When I climbed up that ladder, all I knew was that visuals were the biggest parts of my life, nothing else mattered that much. But then through “tac tac,” I realized that visuals and texts were inseparable and was able to bring them together to solve real problems. When I strained every single one of my nerves trying to write a text-only academic essay, I thought there was nothing duller than this. But then “swoosh” showed me the incredible power of words and images coming together to bring our thoughts to the world, and I realized I had known their power all along as early as I made the “creak creak” sound.
Literacy Narrative Part One: https://joyfuljoyce717.wordpress.com/literacy-narrative/
Joyce Xu 