Friday, October 24, 2008

Serendipty

Since joining Literary Mama, I've communicated with or read about women who began writing when they were children. Since I came to know the writer in me much later in life (though I've saved poems fraught with adolescent angst), these mamas' memories make me wistful.

Then last weekend my sister and I helped my mom and dad clean out an old trunk where my mom revealed a forgotten cache of elementary workbooks she had saved for us. Tucked inside one of mine was a letter I had written in 4th grade. It was obviously an assignment, as I talked about visiting Courage Cove (a place unknown to me).

The letter is unremarkable except for one passage: "I went to Courage Cove this Monday while I was there there was a storm. But rain can't keep me in. I wandered all around the place I went to to Gray's Repair shop. . ." Tucked between two run on (one awkwardly constructed) sentences, I see a glimmer of my writing voice.

That made me happy.

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