I've started working on a series of children's books about my family. I remember when I was a little girl and I went through a phase where I couldn't sleep at night. It started at the age of 9 when I first became aware of my own mortality. It was as if the realization of death was like an endless wave that just kept washing over me, again and again. There was a period where I thought the force of it alone might kill me. Every night I cried, terrified to turn off the light. The idea that I could be alive at that very moment and possibly dead the next was just too much for me to wrap my 9 year old head around. So every night I would lay down in bed with the lights on and reach over to my book shelf and grab 1 of 30 different books from my Berenstain Bears collection. Whether brother bear was visiting the dentist, or mama bear had decided that the family was watching too much T.V., I found my sanctuary in those pages; a sense of safety I could not seem to muster up within myself. The innocence and consistency of it all brought me a sense of peace in those dark moments when I felt I had no control over anything. Jan berenstain died last week and I guess their fundamentalist christian son decided to take over the stories. Go figure, my refuge to ease my fear of death passes on and is replaced by a structural belief system that is constantly trying to divide and conquer it. Oh well.
Anyways, a friend of mine has encouraged me to try and find my voice in these children's books. My hope is to make a new series, one that is more up to date, that will comfort and relate to children in the modern world. I want to acknowledge divorce, diversity, and the common afflictions of everyday life in a manner that will both calm and sympathize. In other words, I want to offer children in todays world a tool that is similar to the one I had when I found myself too scared to close my eyes at night. I'm sure there are other kids out there that are just like I was, although I hope to God not too many, because frankly, those days sucked.
I'm not sure where my voice lies entirely. All I know are my intentions. I think I spent my whole life trying to find my voice. I've begged for consistency and now all I want is multiplicity. Go figure.
