A WRITER IS BORN - An Essay

There is this thing called writing that I’ve always felt an affinity for doing every since I was a little girl.

Picture this: A mother gives her child an assignment.  Write your grandmother a letter she says.  Her little baby girl sits on the linoleum floor of the kitchen with a pencil and a piece of lined paper and begins to write.  Never mind that she does not know how to read, that she is not even in the first grade and cannot identify her alphabet.  She makes a series of loops on the paper. Her brow furrows in concentration.

Her heart is pouring forth on the paper. Her brother, Frog, has done what big brothers do to hurt her feelings. Her mother has placed her little brother, Lupe, in Baby Girl’s bed.  These are things that the Grandmother should know.  Perhaps she will do something to help.  This letter must tell it all. And it does. After, there is a very solemn moment when the mother takes the letter and folds it and puts it in an envelope.

Baby Girl walks with mother to the mailbox at the end of a long block and watches as the mother puts the envelope in the mouth of the blue box.  And it is done.  

A writer is born.  That day was my true birthday.

And I do remember it.

an essay by Bonnie Glover - 2008; who celebrates her birthday every time she writes!!

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