Cobwebs

Sarah, Grade 4

Indulge me, please. It's my birthday.

A time for looking back. And feeding the future.

So here's a window into my past. I wrote this little gem when I was ten. Try not to laugh (or yawn).

Once upon a time there was a girl named Shannon. She lived in a very big palace, but was not happy, because she could not marry the one boy she loved, Dusty. One day she sighed and said to herself, "I want to marry Dusty soooo much. I wish father would let me. Mother might let me, but father's opinion counts the most." Then, Shannon suddenly got a terrific idea that she would run a way! She grabbed a suitcase, and then packed in a hurry. She sneacked quietly down the stairs and ran out of the palace.

I know. Dusty. Soooo lame.

Names aside, I was happy to discover this fragment while rifling through old papers yesterday. Maybe this is overstating it, but it represents some kind of continuum to me, some kind of song from my youth that still reverberates today. So rare.

I never had that writing fever in my blood from an early age. I didn't spin wild tales for my friends (and yes, plot is still a weakness). I couldn't even keep a diary for more than a week without growing bored. My imagination grew mossy and fertile in books, yes. But I never thought I'd be writing them.

And yet here is a short piece I took the trouble to type, on my own. Not for school. Not for my parents. But simply because I wanted to tell a story.

And even if that story is slight and generic, I can recognize my present self in its lines. Maybe you can, too. There's something strangely grounding and comforting about that. So much about that girl in the photo is unrecognizable to me now. But there are these cobwebs connecting us.

As for what happened to Shannon and Dusty...who knows? Life is an open road. And I never want to reach The End.