Wow. What a rough week. In the past few days, I had to say goodbye to Adam “MCA” Yauch and was reminded of how tragically short Keith Haring’s life was (he would have turned 54 the day MCA died).
Waking up to the news that Maurice Sendak has passed away is particularly hard.
I am immediately brought back to kindergarten. I’m sitting, Indian-style (what an awful phrase when you think about it), on the rug of my school’s library as Mrs. Durkin reads Where The Wild Things Are. While the other kids “listen”, I am enamored. Just like Max, I too escape to this vivid world. The story and artwork immediately grab hold of me. Not having the knowledge that nearly 20 years later I would be working on creating my own worlds, I experience one of the most formative events of my life.
Shortly after we would hear the book on tape but nothing is a replacement for reading the story to yourself, hearing the waves crashing against Max’s vessel and the pounding rumpus of Carol and the other monsters. This was how Maurice intended it.
His uncompromising vision of how to properly enrich and entertain young readers is something that is often lost on cartoons and books today. Sure, they find clever ways to teach children the arms of the clock or shapes or colors. Maurice’s books taught us about acceptance, love, bravery, sadness and all of the truths we would need to learn to go into this often harsh world of adulthood.
His imagination and effortless grace at executing story and art are the reasons why I can still vividly remember every detail of that library. The rug, the shelves, the windows looking out into the courtyard where the nuns would sometimes sit and maybe try to remember their childhoods as well.
I will never know him personally. Never meet him. Never get to thank him to his face for everything he didn’t realize he had done for me. That may sound like the hardest part but I know it isn’t. The hardest part is knowing that the light of true imagination just dimmed a bit.
Today, I’ll lift my legs a little higher so my steps make just a bit more noise. With love and bittersweet joy and rumpus, I can be a monster today because Maurice said it’s ok.
Maurice Sendak (1928 – 2012)