I misunderstood the meaning of the Nobel prize.

When I was a kid, I misunderstood the meaning of the Nobel prize. In my head I spelled it like “noble”, and I thought that the prize was reserved for people who were knights or people who were very royal. My world was split into this unattainable idea of people being royal and everyone else being, well, very normal and boring. So I thought I couldn’t really get a noble prize in anything. I also thought that the prize was a very exciting package. Like horses, or bubble machines that made massive bubbles, popping candy or maybe a plane ticket around the world. That would have been a very awesome noble prize. Again, because I was not a knight (and I also thought only boys could be knights) I really didn’t believe that I would live to see these glorious things. When I was a teenager, my English teacher showed me a poem written by a Nobel laureate. It was quite a revelation to my mind, that someone who writes could eventually rise into nobility. So I told myself that I’d win one of those noble prizes one day. And I started to write things down.

I was cleaning out my basement junk drawers and found old notes that I had written to myself. I’d made sketches of what I thought were noble things to write about. Among them were: world peace, homes for animals, food for all people, books and pencils and words for little children. These were noble prizes. T h e y   s t i l l   a r e.