Read Online The Book of Why by Nicholas Montemarano - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nicholas Montemarano
Tags: Fiction
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keep out the negative.
Negative made my lips tingle, made my arms and legs weak, made me fear falling.
That was how I knew I needed to change my thoughts or else.
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The first time I felt my lips tingle: Rockaway Beach, an August morning, my tenth birthday. The steady sound of waves breaking, a lifeguardâs whistle, the cries of seagulls as they swooped down to scavenge bread crusts, crumbs clinging to muffin wrappers. The ripe smell of seaweed. Sea wind blew sand onto my legs. Waves, louder and closer, sprayed my face with ocean dew.
I opened my eyes: skywriters wrote words that faded before I could read them. A fat boy ran past with a jellyfish impaled on a stick.
My mother covered her pale legs with a towel. But the towel didnât cover her feet; they were starting to burn.
Sheâd had a severe sunburn once, had stayed in bed three days. The way sheâd moaned, Iâd been afraid she might die. My father had made a game of peeling her skinâwhoever peeled the biggest piece won.
Now my father dozed with a hat over his eyes. My mother suggested we move our beach chairs away from the water; my father told her to stop worrying so much. My mother said, The waterâs rough, itâs coming closer, and I felt the tingling in my lips as if Iâd tried to eat that jellyfish. My mother moved her chair and told me to do the same. My father didnât move; he said nothing when the water reached his feet, not when it rose to his ankles, not when a wave knocked him from his chair. He lay on his back on the sand, and the water rolled over his head, back out, over him again, and I wanted to speak, but my mouth didnât work, and the water rolled in and out, my father could have been a body washed ashore.
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You could make a negative memory positive by revising it: we all moved our chairs back; the water never reached my father.
* * *
Thank you for morning sunlight. Thank you for the sound fall leaves make when I walk through them. Thank you for the sight of my breath in cold morning air. Thank you for the long eyelashes of the girl sitting across from me on the bus, so long they look fake. Thank you for when she blinks.
She pulled the bell cord and stood: the other side of her face was pink with burn scars; only one eye had lashes.
Years later, in Atlanta, a woman with facial burns asked me to sign her copy of my third book, There Are No Accidents . She had lost her house in a fire. Within a year, she had lost her job and her marriage.
I wasnât thinking the right thoughts, it was nothing but negativity and anger and self-pity, and your book got me back on the right path. I feel beautiful again, I really do. Thank you, thank you for everything .
I signed her book, For Sharon, with best wishes and admiration .
Â
I wrote in my notebook about the girl on the bus. I described her eyelashes and tried to think of them from time to time, especially when I was trying to turn a negative positive.
But it was impossible to think of her eyelashes without thinking of her burns, you couldnât have one half of her face without the other, and eventually I tore that sheet from my notebook and decided it was best not to think about her at all.
I slept with the notebook under my pillow. I brought it to school. I hid it in my closet with my fatherâs ashtray and his last pack of cigarettes.
There were four sections: Rules, Signs, Proof, and Positive Thoughts.
I didnât want my mother to find it.
Composition, not spiral, which could unwind over time and cut you. Pencil, not pen, in case I made a mistake.
I pressed hard, and sometimes it was impossible to erase a mistake completely; sometimes the eraser was dirty and made things worse, and I had to buy a new notebook and copy everything from the old one.
Â
A week after the day it had been a year, a windy November morning, my mother tied a yellow ribbon around the tree in front of our house. Many of our neighbors did the
Negative made my lips tingle, made my arms and legs weak, made me fear falling.
That was how I knew I needed to change my thoughts or else.
Â
The first time I felt my lips tingle: Rockaway Beach, an August morning, my tenth birthday. The steady sound of waves breaking, a lifeguardâs whistle, the cries of seagulls as they swooped down to scavenge bread crusts, crumbs clinging to muffin wrappers. The ripe smell of seaweed. Sea wind blew sand onto my legs. Waves, louder and closer, sprayed my face with ocean dew.
I opened my eyes: skywriters wrote words that faded before I could read them. A fat boy ran past with a jellyfish impaled on a stick.
My mother covered her pale legs with a towel. But the towel didnât cover her feet; they were starting to burn.
Sheâd had a severe sunburn once, had stayed in bed three days. The way sheâd moaned, Iâd been afraid she might die. My father had made a game of peeling her skinâwhoever peeled the biggest piece won.
Now my father dozed with a hat over his eyes. My mother suggested we move our beach chairs away from the water; my father told her to stop worrying so much. My mother said, The waterâs rough, itâs coming closer, and I felt the tingling in my lips as if Iâd tried to eat that jellyfish. My mother moved her chair and told me to do the same. My father didnât move; he said nothing when the water reached his feet, not when it rose to his ankles, not when a wave knocked him from his chair. He lay on his back on the sand, and the water rolled over his head, back out, over him again, and I wanted to speak, but my mouth didnât work, and the water rolled in and out, my father could have been a body washed ashore.
Â
You could make a negative memory positive by revising it: we all moved our chairs back; the water never reached my father.
* * *
Thank you for morning sunlight. Thank you for the sound fall leaves make when I walk through them. Thank you for the sight of my breath in cold morning air. Thank you for the long eyelashes of the girl sitting across from me on the bus, so long they look fake. Thank you for when she blinks.
She pulled the bell cord and stood: the other side of her face was pink with burn scars; only one eye had lashes.
Years later, in Atlanta, a woman with facial burns asked me to sign her copy of my third book, There Are No Accidents . She had lost her house in a fire. Within a year, she had lost her job and her marriage.
I wasnât thinking the right thoughts, it was nothing but negativity and anger and self-pity, and your book got me back on the right path. I feel beautiful again, I really do. Thank you, thank you for everything .
I signed her book, For Sharon, with best wishes and admiration .
Â
I wrote in my notebook about the girl on the bus. I described her eyelashes and tried to think of them from time to time, especially when I was trying to turn a negative positive.
But it was impossible to think of her eyelashes without thinking of her burns, you couldnât have one half of her face without the other, and eventually I tore that sheet from my notebook and decided it was best not to think about her at all.
I slept with the notebook under my pillow. I brought it to school. I hid it in my closet with my fatherâs ashtray and his last pack of cigarettes.
There were four sections: Rules, Signs, Proof, and Positive Thoughts.
I didnât want my mother to find it.
Composition, not spiral, which could unwind over time and cut you. Pencil, not pen, in case I made a mistake.
I pressed hard, and sometimes it was impossible to erase a mistake completely; sometimes the eraser was dirty and made things worse, and I had to buy a new notebook and copy everything from the old one.
Â
A week after the day it had been a year, a windy November morning, my mother tied a yellow ribbon around the tree in front of our house. Many of our neighbors did the
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