With our new English teacher, our class has started a new project: until the end of this school year, we will practice writing essays about “This I believe” AND each student will make a short movie on her best essay :-).
After two essays on childhood and chocolate, here’s my third attempt, which I wrote last night. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
The Treasure Chest
It is like a treasure chest. Very simple and unimposing when it is closed, but it holds the mystery of a whole world inside of it.
It lies. Some of the lies are good, to give me hope. Some of them are dark and make me think things I shouldn’t.
It has a bad influence on me, says my mom. “You need a dose of reality. You need to do more homework,” she says. “You need to read the newspaper so you know who the President is. You need to stop opening the box.”
It holds memories. I open it and I can see the sea. I open it and I can see the mountains. I open it and I can see World War II. I open it and I see things everyone else has long forgotten.
It rebels against us, says the government. And they close the box and put it away and allow nobody to open it.
It makes me cry. It makes me see things that are too sad for me to imagine. It shows me how life could have been for me if I had been born in another family.
It is my friend. It has always been my friend and will always be my friend. It opens when I’m sad and shows the light that burns deep inside of it. It tells me that inside of me, there is a light that burns even stronger.
Its name is book. And I believe that “book” has changed my life.