Edward Gorey and Bedtime Stories

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Seeing this funny photo of Edward Gorey today brought back memories of my childhood bedtime story experience. Many writers cite bedtime stories as being a catalyst for their future interest in writing and storytelling. I definitely count myself as being one of those writers, but my bedtime story experience was probably a little different than the typical bedtime story ritual.

My dad preferred making up bedtimes stories to reading them from books. They were always interactive, and usually featured alter egos of me and my little sister as the protagonists of the tale. These alter egos, Malana and Schmemily, went on many adventures over the years. They took spaceships to the moon and hung out with aliens. They were trapeze artists in the circus, befriending elephants and tigers. They went on voyages around over the world, often coming up against antagonists who made their journey difficult.

My dad didn’t really believe in reading cutesy books written specifically for children, so when he did read us books, they were usually pretty off-beat. He preferred the darker Roald Dahl novels like The Witches and The Vicar of Nibbleswicke. His favorite books to read us, though, were written by Edward Gorey. Many a night I fell asleep to the rhymes of The Wuggly Ump:

 

“Sing twiddle-ear, sing twaddle-or,
The Wuggly Ump is at the door…

How uninviting are its claws!
How even more so are its jaws!

Sing glogalimp, sing glugalump,
From deep inside the Wuggly Ump.”

(© Edward Gorey)

 

 

 

After my father read us these disturbing stories, my mother followed his act with a guided relaxation exercise where we took deep breaths and imagined we were at the beach. I guess that was to calm us down and keep us from having nightmares from our bedtime stories. It’s funny now to look back at how different their approaches to bedtime rituals were. While it was fun to listen to my dad’s made-up stories and hear him recite from the dark rhymes of Edward Gorey, it was probably also good to take a relaxing trip to the beach before falling asleep.

What was your childhood bedtime story ritual?

The Future

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As you may have noticed, I haven’t been blogging or vlogging at all these past few weeks. I decided to take some time, once again, to think about the direction I want to take this website (and my life in general). I still plan to vlog every few weeks or so, but I’d also like to return to blogging regularly.

Now, about the future of this website. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been an aspiring musician for most of my life. Until recently, this aspiration manifested itself through singing songs in the shower and the occasional karaoke performance. But then one fateful day last year, I spotted a ukulele in a guitar shop, and something about it sparked my interest. I was serious about learning the ukulele as an instrument, but I also figured it would probably be something I gave up on as soon as the novelty wore off and it became challenging.

Over the years, I’ve tried my hand at a variety of instruments but never progressed beyond a beginning level. I convinced myself I simply had no musical talent. But somehow, I managed to stick with the ukulele. Maybe it’s because the ukulele didn’t intimidate me like those other instruments did. I didn’t take it or myself too seriously, and not taking it too seriously gave me the confidence I needed to learn how to play it seriously. Finally armed with a musical tool to accompany my singing, I’ve slowly been building a collection of songs that I am now starting to record.

So, my vision for this site is for it to become a hub for both my writing and my music, as well as a place for me to blog about life, writing, music, my thoughts and opinions, etc. I’ll probably throw some of my photos in now and then as well. I appreciate everyone’s patience as this site has cycled through numerous transitions since I started it last year.

Hopefully I’ll find my footing soon and this site can be what I always truly meant for it to be: a place for me to share myself, my life, and my creative projects with the world. I know there’s a tendency to want to place people in a certain box (writer, musician, photographer, blogger, vlogger). But since I’m all of those things, I think the only course of action is to have this site reflect all of those sides of me.

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