This is very similar to how I "came to lisp". I was attempting to come up with a more uniform smalltalk/ruby syntax and slowly talked my way into s-expressions. I had tried emacs lisp and scheme so I was aware OF the syntax but the pedagogical experience of WHY the syntax was a lot more profound. After that reading ANSI common lisp, let over lambda, etc. cemented my love for macros and I've never looked back. Actually given that I settled on clojure which still lacks the self-hosted qualities of common lisp I DO look back but only at common lisp.