Every week, the AWM is excited to bring you stories written by our visitors in our Story of the Day exhibit. Check back weekly for new stories, and visit the Museum to try out our typewriters and possibly be featured here!
It’s time to head back to school, which can be bittersweet for parents:
They were so different, the two girlsof my heart. The first was so eager to leave me, to forge her own path. And she knew exactly where she wanted to go too. It was easy to guide her. All I had to do was let go and watch. Once I was silent long enough, she would surprise me by asking to hear my thoughts. We have so little in common sometimes, but she is happy and moving forward with gusto. The second is the child of my soul. I could almost swear that I can feel the ghost of her umbilical cord. As we reach the shore of her journey away, she is in no particular rush. She has a very specific idea of her ultimate destination, but no great aggression about charting her own path there. And openness to the possibility that perhaps she is mistaken even as I suspect that she is not. I feel the need to push her toward the edge of the nest, to at least peer over the edge, even as I dread the thought of her leaving it. And I savour these last days, weeks, years, that I still get to take her presence for granted.
I shudder at the prospect of setting them free and finding that I have given them wings so strong that they never land again.
Writing and words are what we love, of course, but it’s also a hard job!
Writers are strange creatures. They work long, long hours, sometimes for no pay or even any promise of pay. They seem to hold the world of thoughts in their heads, sometimes sharing them with others, sometimes finding those thoughts crystallize only when they are written, thoughts which vaporize from their brains when they leave the paper.
Words are so powerful! They shape and mold us more than we realize they do.
I wanted to write
a haiku that is profound
but I’m out of words.
