I was a silent child, or so I’ve been told. My mother often recounts, with an air of disbelief, the momentous occasion on which I finally opened my mouth and spewed forth a sentence that was both complete and completely intelligible. I was then two, and up until that moment, I suppose I had nothing of importance to say.

I grew into a silent young person. Some thought me depressed or perhaps a snob or maybe just shy. I shut myself away with pencils and notebooks, scribbling in journals and authoring stories. Jo March was my hero; I envied her strength of character, her resilience, her spunky personality. However, I was not bold like Jo; I didn’t have her voice.

I am an adult now, still quiet and reserved.

But I do have a lot to say.

Almost two decades have passed since I first manipulated a pencil into crafting words on paper. And then I stumbled my way around a typewriter, hen-pecking at its keys and fumbling with correction tape. In college, I succumbed to the computer’s ease and accessibility. The tickety-tickety of fingers dancing quickly across the keyboard as words fly up on the screen has never ceased to be one of my favorite sounds. It’s the sound of a productive mind racing with ideas, stringing words together and shaping them into meaningful thoughts.

Is it any wonder I can remember the first book I learned to read, The Teddy Bear Gardener? Whether simple or advanced, words, and the messages they convey, have a way of moving their reader.

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I am a freelance writer living and working in Upstate New York. Aside from print publication, I am working on developing a online magazine for parents called Root & Sprout.

You can contact me via email: woolgatherings@gmail.com   

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