Хмары над Бацькаўшчынай

Memory

The view from my little corner of the room where I sit playing with my toys is of a foot and a leg. The leg is crossed over the other and is twitching restlessly. I can hear a soft hissing sound. It is coming from between his teeth. It is my father. My mother and I must be very quiet because my father is working. His work is "thinking. In his mind there is a story unfolding. My father needs total concentration to put that story together. He needs quiet to jot down his thoughts on paper before they escape him. My father is a writer. He is a creator. He creates stories from events that happened to him. Somewhere deep within him those events trigger feelings and his need to express them. I am about five years old, I do not understand this yet. All I know is that I must be quiet and not disturb him until he is ready for me. My father devoted his whole being to writing. He loved his country. He committed himself to do all that he could to help in the struggle to help Belarus independent. As a parent his guidance was of the most general kind. He loved to read, to go on long walks, to listen to music. My father read aloud to me, sometimes his own, sometimes the poems of Janka Kupala and other writers. He would tell me fairy tales, ancient myths, legends and heroes of our country. He told me of the old kings and knights and of their courage, patriotism and individual defiance of fate in the history of Belarus. I grew up with love of reading. Someone once said "as music is for the ear, so is literature music for the brain". Literature shows the universality of truth. Its been said that love of reading cannot be "taught", but it may be "caught".

I am a storyteller. I do not write or create stories as my father did. I don't have that talent. I work in a public library with children. I share literature with children. I entice children into the wonderful world of literature. I show them the way to so much pleasure, intellectual simulation, knowledge, and just plain fun!

Slava Celesz Brown