How My Soul of Souls Was Fed...

How my Soul was Fed...

When a bored teenager finds a treasure beneath the attic floorboards, a future writer is born...

How MY Soul Was Fed...

I was 12, or 13. I was the equator, so it was an endless Summer. We, my Uncle and I was traveling to the promised land America.. We stayed in a house, a bed n breakfast on St. Vincent Island, Cape Verde Islands, Africa on our way to Lisbon Portugal and finally Brooklyn NY. This after we went to the island of Sal (salt) to board a plane and stayed in a stent with a woman and her 4 children who sleep in the one bed that's present, in the salt harvest flats on the island, that doubles as the sole international airport where we boarded a puddle hopper, known as a turbo prop to Lisbon.

It was a raggedy house, with no screens on the casement windows in the attic. That house survived the many hurricanes that begin here and endup in Florida, two flies beat their wings, we have a butterfly effect and it becomes a hurricane in Orlando. I slept in this house. It was so hot and humid up there that tears of sweat dripped down my neck onto what would one day become a great young manhood.

I got bitten on the arm by two large size mosquitoes at the same time, and while I sat there in front of a fan that didn't rotate or oscillate, I watched the red bumps rise, and ooze puss because I was bored. This after being bitten by bed bugs. I continued watching as a what looked kike a red rash developed on my hand and fore arm, apparently some parasite was delivered. I was hot and my fever rose as my body fought the alien forms introduced to my body. My uncle was nowhere to be found. I'm guessing he was out and about. Possibly trying to engage passage on a ferry to the island of Sal, where the only airport was.

While thinking about how I might escape, I leaned sideways, and my hand landed on a floorboard, just under my mattress on the floor that propped up and almost knocked me out, that is hit me in the head. When I bent over and looked inside the open space , I could see, gold but didn't believe my eyes: there was gold, yes, gold in there! I picked up a handful of shiny gold cubes and its confetti, and I knew there had to millions worth herein. I ran to the bottom stair and yelled to my uncle... "Tio, --I found gold up there under the floor!

back up the stairs in delirium, I dashed, but I tripped and almost fell down in my haste. When my uncle who had heard me thru the floorboards and floor vents as he came into the house, open his room door and stuck his head out, he said, "Chile, that's insulation. Now put it back."

I though we were going to be free, free at last, thanks to god almighty, free at last. That we would be able to move out of this dump and we would all have our own rooms with A/C, whatever that was or is. I thought I had made a real discovery.

When I reached inside to toss the fake gold back, my hand touched what felt like a book. I pulled and pulled until I fell back with in in tow. I had pulled it out, wow! It took some effort. It was old and small: "Citações Familiares de Bartlett." ( Bartletts' Familiar Quotations ). I wondered whom were they supposed to be familiar to. because I'd never heard of teh book before. What I did know, that's to Mr. Ratatouille, my 2nd or 3rd grade language teacher, I don't remember which, was the correct way to use quotation marks. And since I was bored out of my skull, I decided to see what was inside this little worn out dog eared book.

ON the top left 'n right-hand corners of each page was a word or phrase. I opened it to "conforto" - "comfort" - and then "conforto e desespero" - "comfort and despair," - and then farther down was "confortável" - "comfortable." Dang! I had just found out what a thesaurus was, and I could already tell that this was going to become more interesting.

I remember "Dúvida" - "Doubt." "Paz" - "Peace." "Resistência" - "Endurance." "Destino" - "Fate." "Esperança e Esperançavel" - "Hope and Hopeful." "Honra e Honorável" - "Honor and Honorable." "Luz" - "Light." How many connotations there were for "light" alone! I never thought about it any other way except as a candle, oil or kerosene lamp or daylight. "Amor" - "Love" has so many pages, and I spent a great deal of time reading about it, since I'd never felt it before. Phew. "Paixão" - "Passion." "Paciência" - "Patience." "Autocontrole" - "Self-Control." "Segurança" - "Security." - "Mulher" - "Woman." "Desejos" - Wishes." "Woebegone."

I skipped to see whether there was a word that started with 'z' zed that might reflect some kind of emotion I could recognize: "Zelo" - "Zeal."

It helped to find out that Mr. Bartlett didn't feel all these emotions himself and there were no emoticons or emojis.

He had gathered up quotations from thousands of other people.

I was relieved to discover that some people were not afraid to express how they felt and feelings about things that were already starting to plague me. I realized that I was lonely. and not alone. That I didn't know whom to talk to about this, the world at large and my role in it all. What was the point of living? I found myself shoplifting, after the little money I was getting was gone just to eat something In would have to share , even though I knew stealing was wrong. I wanted to know why so many people of color were poor. I wanted to get on a bus and an airplane, whatever that was. I wanted to know what a kiss felt like. What winning felt like. What was it going to take for us to get a front porch with steps and a white picket fence? Electricity, hot and cold running water every day. I wanted to know what it was like to go on vacation to Disney, Seaworld and Universal was like? What was I supposed to do with promises (no promise) that people didn't keep? I wanted to whom to tell when my heart was broken, it hurt, I cried and didn't understand why.

Strangely enough I found solace in these pages. Answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking or know how to ask. I has discovered that I was not alone in some of the things I ran across, felt and thought: What bereavement and grief feel like? And what caused it? How's it feel to be loved? How do you know when you feel remorseful?What makes me lie? What do you do with your fears? What is the value and power of dreams?

I often thought about things I didn't feel I could talk to anybody about because I didn't know how to articulate it or them. This book of passages, phrases and proverbs was first issued in 1855 and is currently in its eighteenth edition, published in 2012. The book initially sold the work selling over 300,000 copies. More than 150 years after its original publication, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations has been completely revised and updated for its 18th edition. With thousands of new quotes chosen for their literary power, intellectual and historical significance, originality, and timelessness, Bartlett’s is a more valuable resource than ever before for the lover of language and literature.
For more than a century, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations has been an indispensable resource for quotes for scholarly and casual readers alike. Along with our newly updated 18th edition, we’re proud to announce that — for the first time — Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is available as a searchable and shareable app. http://www.bartlettsquotes.com/

This book of passages, phrases and proverbs helped me acknowledge that I didn't need to feel ashamed, or embarrassed, because other people had thought about a lot of things I did -- and not always in the same way. "I'm not tragically a person of color. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind mine eyes ... I do not weep at the world -- I'm too busy sharpening my oyster shucking knife." --Zora Kneale Hurston, 1928.

Somewhere between the sixth and ninth grade, I got my first job, as a page at our local public library on 4th Ave & Pacific Sts. B'klyn NY. I often hid in the dumbwaiter or the ladies room, where I would cross my legs so no one would see me me sitting in the stall, and I would read. It was at this library that I realized how some of those emotions I'd felt while reading Bartlett's came to life in the characters I had started discovering in novels.

When I left home at 17 yo to go away to prep-school and college, Bartlett's acme to me. Over the years, I've kept my original copy, and to this day I often refer to it. I have bought quite a few of the newer editions, but the first one is the only one that liberated me from me, that helped me to see more than my young mind and heart were able to understand.

Discovering Bartlett's Familiar Quotations under those floorboards was, indeed gold.