A Book About a Seagull...or Is It More?

It was not a typical children's book. The plastic protective cover was yellowed and cracked in places. The navy background looked dull and the single image (outline really) of a gull in flight seemed lacking to a child of the 80's; born into all things florescent and patterned. But my Nana reached for it on one of my sleepovers and began to read the complex book, while I looked at pictures of seagulls and drifted off.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was the book, and it took several sleepovers to get through it. At the time, I could never have appreciated how Richard Bach wove such poetic musings of life's biggest questions into a story seemingly about a seagull. I was seven years old, freckled-faced and chocolate saucer-eyed, quiet and content. There was something in the way my Nana's voice so calmly submersed herself into these teachings, almost trancelike, that embedded the book into my soul. I've carried it with me throughout the years, dissecting the lessons with each time I revisit it.

"Overcome space and all we have left is here. Overcome time and all we have left is now. And in the middle of here and now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?"

My Nana died suddenly of heart failure shortly after we'd completed the story. It's been 32 years, and yet when I close my eyes I am instantly back in my Mother's childhood bedroom, my Nana's warm body snuggled up to mine, her sun-kissed hand flipping the pages, and her voice filling the room. That quote bursts with her energy every time I read it. It's as if when she read those words she was foreshadowing a time when she'd be gone, but yet, still very much present. I could continue to see her, each time I chose the book off the shelf. I could overcome space and time, just as Jonathan had.

Recently, I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull to my own daughters, ages 9 and 12. I remembered the smell of the book when I picked it up, another time-travel moment back to my childhood. I reminisced about my Nana's fluffball of a cat that sat always at an arms-length to me, aptly named Mr. T. I could once again see the long shadows dancing on the wall as the sun slid behind the trees outside the bedroom's balcony, the memory so clear I could almost reach for it. As I read the words aloud to my own daughters, I felt my voice slipping seamlessly into her smooth tones. They, too, looked at the images and drifted off, not thinking too much about the lessons. But I hope that it's sinking in to the fabric of their being, the way it did with me. I hope that they carry the lessons deep inside and that they surface at the right time. I hope they remember:

"You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way."

The book is listed amongst fifty "timeless spiritual classics" by non-fiction author Tom Butler-Bowden, and has been sprinkled throughout pop culture since the seventies. It's evident it's won the hearts of many, and has carried it's weight as something more than just a story about a gull.

Since I didn't get to know my Nana as an adult, I can only guess the reasons behind her choosing this book to read to her seven-year-old granddaughter. Could it have been that it was the only book in her house that could be construed as a children's book? Or was it deeper than that? Did she want to awaken something inside of me to question life's limitations? Either way, the latter is what happened. And now, my own children get to decide how they'll carry the book inside.

I hope they'll choose to fly.