I was going
through some boxes in the basement and found my writing binder from when I was eight and nine
years old. I remembered it was there but I had totally forgotten what was inside
– I wrote several “novels” -- and even illustrated them myself!—kept together
by an Animal Crackers binder that was
ever so popular in 1982.
I wrote what I
knew – there are references to Acapulco (where we holidayed every year) and
great reverence for the Duke boys (of whom I was a huge fan). Characters were named
after my friends at the time and were interested in the things we were into –
baseball, reading Nancy Drew books, making up dance routines and songs to
present at our talent shows. It’s like a subjective time capsule; it speaks to
a slice of time but through the lens of a prepubescent girl in Calgary.
It was great to
flip through these stories and read about what my young brain thought was
interesting enough to put pencil to paper to record. Sure, it’s riddled with
grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, but I’ve seen worse writing on the
Internet so I suppose I should cut myself some slack.
The best part of
this whole discovery is how interested Carmen is in what I wrote. She’s the
same age now as I was then, so maybe what I wrote really speaks to someone that
age. Or maybe she’s just enjoying exploring a piece of her mom that she didn’t
know about before. And maybe it’ll spur her to write her own stories and use
her imagination to create something that her kids will flip through in 30 years
and say, “Wow, that’s pretty cool, Mom.” If nothing else it has reminded me of
how much I have always loved to write and how important it is to get serious
about putting the stories in my head down on paper. So thanks to the
nine-year-old me for the kick in the pants. Message received.