In this blog, I often talk about how to get better at the English language.

Today, I thought I would do something a little different:

I’d like to share a story with you – the story of what I genuinely believe made me good at using English.

I was born in Johor Bahru, Malaysia – but I never really stayed there for long, never really got to know the place very well; because of my father’s job, we often moved from place to place, scattering ourselves across the country – from the south part to the north part of Malaysia. To say the least, it was a bit of a chaotic childhood.

One of the anchor points of that childhood was the Kedah public library.

I remember the scene distinctly, though the details escape me – I am sitting down at a table in morning sunlight, which casts the scene in a soft shade of what I would call resplendent calm; in the path of a ray of light emitted from a window, small dust particles flicker in and out of existence, attendants to the light.

The book appears to me, yet it fades out of memory – but what I remember is how the plastic chair supports me and my mother does as well, sitting behind me as she turns the pages, which flicker and rustle in the sunlight as words sound out softly in the still air.

I couldn’t tell you why that scene is one of the most meaningful I’d ever experienced in my life, but it is there that I remember everything: the library, the smell of books wafting from the shelves – the old and brown paper that touched my fingers as I opened each little book.

There was the wonder of my childhood years – the memories that stream out from small moments that took place when I was just five.

That memory has never escaped me, and the emotions that come with it abide with me whenever I think about books, about what they meant to me growing up, and what they continue to mean to me whether I teach, I read, I learn about the world.

When I think about learning, I think about that ancient memory enshrined in my heart – it causes me to remember that there is a meaning in my learning that converges in escaping back into a time of wonder and towards a time when I was younger, more impressionable, more free-spirited, where a life that could take any shape was a possibility.

Does such a moment exist for you, dear reader?

I wonder.