Framed and hung

When my daughters were little, I mean really little, like in preschool, they’d come home with stories, messages and sentiments, written by them, for me.  The writings were pretty amazing considering that neither kid knew more than a few letters of the alphabet and could barely write their own names. What the girls could do, was talk.

The teachers, in their infinite wisdom, became their writers and interpreters. Stories, cards and memoirs of their days were verbally communicated by the child, to the adult who wrote down exactly what they said. Considering how young they were at the time, I was amazed by how interpretive and wise my daughters were. Always with vocabularies far ahead of their peers, my girls were excellent writers even though they didn’t know an M from an N or an O from a Q. They didn’t need to ‘write’ in order to write, as long as they had someone to scribble down what they dictated.

For those of us whose diplomas on the wall are signed by the seat of our pants, we often feel inadequate because not having a fancy writing education sometimes creates a huge wall dividing the learned, from the learning. If you are a writer with a dream, an open and inquisitive mind, if you have thick skin, revel in your own company and most of all you have the tenacity to row, even when the tide is against you, then you will be successful.

My daughters couldn’t write but boy could they write. Just because their little hands couldn’t form the letters didn’t mean their minds couldn’t form the words. So, never underestimate the talent and abilities of those less educated, never underestimate your own abilities. 

When was the last time you spelled inadequate as s-u-c-c-e-s-s?