Letter Blocks

[#1]

I can still remember lying in bed with my mom as she read me a bedtime story. I recall how cozy I was, how much I loved the way my mom read, and the millions of books I loved. I can also remember the images, the pictures and the characters.

Children's books are the first way we develop our imagination. One of my favorite books was Eloise. It is about a slightly ratty and definitely bratty girl who lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where I grew up. I loved seeing how mischievous Eloise was, with her little pet turtle, as she wreaked havoc throughout the hotel. But my favorite part was the description of her riding the elevator. The book's page folded out into an extra long picture showing every stop she would make and then how she would run up and down the stairs to catch the elevator and ride it again. There must have been twenty different stops. And my mom would go through every one. She made up sound effects for riding the elevator, running on the stairs, bumping into people, even for plotting something devious. I must have had her do the elevator routine a thousand times. Sometimes, she would read me the whole book and I would ask her to go back and do the elevator scene again. The pictures would literally come to life when she did that. It became three dimensional and real.

Neither of us knew it then, but she was giving me the ability to make up my own stories, create my own characters with unique voices. And I used those skills when I learned to read on my own. Looking back at the magical books I began to read by myself like A Wrinkle in Time, Cricket in Times Square, any and all of the Judy Blume books including Superfudge, and all Roald Dahl books especially The BFG, they were only as good as the images I could create in my mind. And today, as an actor, I use those skills every minute of every day. It is my ability to imagine a character or a situation or an entire world that allows me to do what I do. 

One of the hardest things actors have to do is be imaginative without feeling embarrassed or self-conscious, which is stifling to creativity. Looking back on those days, in bed with my mom and a book, there was no embarrassment, only excitement and complete absorption in the world of the story. As I go back to work now, I am reminding myself to bring a little of Eloise into the day...maybe I'll run up and down the stairs a few extra times, smiling.

Editor's Note: Sally Pressman is a classically trained ballet dancer and the star of Lifetime Television's Army Wives.

Message Edited by PaulH on 06-29-2009 07:52 AM