The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

2016 Composition Contest Winnners 27 Intertwined Whitney Herbert Whitney is an International Studies-Premedical major from Saint Clair shores, MI, near Detroit. She’s a junior now and loves reading, cats and Asian dramas. Instead of telling you how I learned to read because I honestly don’t remember, I want to walk you through my memories that made me the reader I am today. Everything is dark. You open your eyes slowly, the light is low so your pupils dilate quickly. You look around a small room – a window, two wooden dressers one with a bookshelf portion, a small closet, another door leading to the unknown, books and Barbies scatter the white carpet. You realize you are in a bed as you snuggle your toes farther into the Power Puff Girls duvet and skim your fingers over the various stuffed animals surrounding you. After you’ve taken stock of the strange setting before you, you hear the sound of footsteps and see as well as hear the unknown door creak open. Mymother in her late thirties appears. She has dark brown hair and an almond complexion. She smiles at you and walks towards you. “Time for bed, pumpkin. You know what that means.” She pulls out a thin book from the bookshelf portion of the wooden dresser, a tall hardback that has a picture of two butterscotch colored rabbits – the bigger one’s ears flopping over onto the younger one who is trying to hold them up with his small paws. “GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU?” encircles the cover scene in big, pastel green letters and my mother squeezes into the tiny bed with you. You can smell the lavender wafting from her hair and feel a comforting warmth wash over you from her nearness. She opens the book and begins to read. A story of Little Nutbrown Hare trying to show his father, Big Nutbrown Hare, how much he loved him and always falling short compared to how much Big Nutbrown loves him unfolds before you. After the story, you feel the dregs of sleep tugging at your eyelids. “Guess how much I love you?” you hear my mother say. “How