Rainy Days and Tall Tales

Rainy Days and Tall Tales

by Yelle dela Cruz

As I was reading The Invitation to the Feast, I noticed the first signs of precipitation outside my room and at once I felt cozy. How I love days like these! My love for rainy days began early in my childhood. I just love to stay at home on a rainy day, sit next to the window and enjoy a hot cup of coffee while snuggling to a good book. I love the scent of the damp earth and dew-drenched grass and the sound of water pouring outside my windowpane. Rainy days and good books never fail to endow my restless spirit with the serenity it needs. I first fell in love with books when Lewis Carroll took me on a journey chasing talking rabbits, invisible cats, sarcastic caterpillars, and a colony of playing cards. I was Alice in Wonderland exploring the world of literature Through the Looking Glass for the very first time. From then on, my thirst for literature was insatiable. I grabbed every book I could get my hands on and read Aesop’s Fables as well as the Canterbury Tales. I then met The Little Prince, visited Tom’s Midnight Garden, joined Gulliver on his Travels, found The Chronicles of Narnia, became a part of Sophie’s World and played quidditch with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Soon afterwards, A Series of Unfortunate Events happened before my very eyes. Edgar Allan Poe horrified me with his Tell Tale Heart and his other writings. Fortunately, Dave Barry gave me a good laugh with his Bad Habits and Robert Fulghum made me chuckle with All the Things I Know I Learned in Kindergarten. As a young lady, I fell in love with William Shakespeare when he swept me off my feet with verses from Romeo and Juliet. Just as Homer pointed out my mortality with his Odyssey and Iliad, author Anthony Summers made me feel like The Goddess. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. further questioned my identity with his science fiction Who Am I This Time? With the question of identity comes the query of religion. I consulted the Bible but Dan Brown challenged me with his Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Zecharia Sitchin saved my sanity when she reconciled science and religion with her series of new age books. Paulo Coelho and C.S. Lewis further strengthened my faith in the good and denounced that which is evil. But then the evil came to haunt me when I found myself in the midst of World War I when I stumbled upon The Diary of Anne Frank. All of a sudden, I was tangled up in crimes and mysteries as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle recounted the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Just as Sherlock Holmes would, I intruded other people’s secret lives in The Stories of William Trevor.

Although I am an avid reader, I know I still have a lot to learn with respect to world literature and Philippine literature. There are still a lot of writers to be discovered, books to be read, stories to be imagined, adventures to be embarked on, characters to love and hate, and emotions to be felt. Meanwhile, I will be sitting near the window on a rainy day, enjoying a hot cup of coffee and snuggling to a good book.