I’ve always loved to read and don’t really remember ever not being able to read. By the time I was seven I was reading several grade levels above my peers.
I didn’t make the connection between reading books and writing books until a visiting children’s author came to our school as a guest lecturer when I was in the second grade.
I remember walking single file to the school library, holding the cold, cast iron handrail as we navigated the winding staircase from our second floor classroom. The library was on the lower level of a building built to withstand a nuclear blast, all thick concrete, brick and granite.
When we arrived we were instructed to sit on the library floor. We all huddled together. I tried to stake my space. This was serious stuff. Someone, a real author was coming to speak to us. I felt quite grown up.
When I first saw her I was a little disappointed. She looked like one of my teachers. Just another grown-up, but then she began to read us one of her books.
Her words spoke to me and I sat transfixed. Listening to her an excitement, a joy, I’d never known began to grow inside of me. I could hardily sit still. I don’t really remember anything she said, but I remember the tingle and thinking “that’s what I want to do.” Until that moment I never realized that the books I loved were written by real, live people.
That night I went home and wrote and illustrated my first book, MR. MONKEY AND ME. Colored pencils, crayons and construction paper, folded in half and then again. Mrs. Austin, my second grade teacher, mailed it off for me.
I was destined for greatness. I could see myself writing everyday, skipping grades, and being famous. I had discovered what I wanted to be and at seven-years-old I had no doubt that it would happen tomorrow.
Well, it didn’t exactly happen like that. The visiting author, her name long forgotten, wrote me a very encouraging letter. I treasured it for years. But, life went on, second grade, third grade, high school, college, a career, and a marriage. And like the letter once held so dear, but eventually lost, the dream too, drifted away.
That was more than thirty-six years ago.
In the intervening years I never stopped writing. But, there is a difference between writing and being a writer.
Over the last year or so, the idea that I am a writer began to sink into my consciousness.
I realized that even when I am not physically writing I am writing. Thoughts flow through my mind as if composing a story, an article, an essay, a poem.
I’ve come to recognize that writing is my way of healing, learning, communicating, sharing, teaching and giving back to the world.
The Dreaming Café is where my journey as a writer joins with my journey as an artist and entrepreneur.
This is just the beginning of my story, my journey. There is more to share. And, the artist and entrepreneur stories are are yet to come.
Where has your life’s journey taken you? Where are you now?
I hope you will share my continuing journey and invite me to share yours along the way.
Please comment or email me at sandy@thedreamingcafe.com. I look forward to your comments, feedback, ideas and stories.
