Past Present Future
Jean, Amanda

AMANDA: I apologize for having to read my story but I'm not the one that can remember and just fly off the handle with the story, here it goes. The title is "Past Present Future". As a child I spent a bulk of my time on the softball fields. If I wasn't on the softball field I was on the basketball or volleyball court. My childhood is flooded with sports and even though I enjoyed sports and did quite well, sports don't spell burning desire in my heart. What in fact does spell burning desire in my heart is the way my grandmother used to whisper stories in my ears. I can see her sitting in her recliner, her feet propped up in sheer delight, and I gently cradled in her lap. My neck intertwined with hers and I would listen, listen to her speak of her childhood and of her love for the church and of her family. I would perch there in her lap imagining a place foreign to what I knew. Little did I know my grandmother planted the literacy seed into my heart, into my soul. Today, in the present moment, I long to revisit my grandmother's life. I long to revisit the one place I knew to be so true. I wish I could ask her questions and begin to tell her how much her stories still mean to me; I reckon she knows. I've always enjoyed writing poems; proudly writing poems for my family, mainly my mother, my father and my grandmother. I can recall my father opening the Christmas card I gave him and finding the hand-written poem in the crease that I had so carefully written for him. He would read it aloud to the family. Everyone respectfully stopped to listen. I would be so nervous, my eyes, as they always did, filled with tears because the moment meant so much to me. On rare occasions I would see a tear swell up in the corner of my father's eye. Those moments, his tears and my tears, somehow confirmed within my heart a sense of purpose and intense feeling of love that I will cherish always. I, at that time, was blind to the fact that expressing my feelings through poetry and through writing was and is dearest to my heart. Over the years my writing took a back seat and wildness entered in. I was lost, really lost. I lost my grandmother - the one true rock that held my spirit together. I completely avoided any ownership of my life and to my responsibilities. But writing, even though I was lost, always seemed constant. At the dawn of the 21st century, my entire life began to shift. I stepped out from behind a haze, a cloud of reality that had ruled my life for several years. The day I became a mother changed my life forever. My heart began to swell with love and overflow with joy. My poetry sprouted, it seemed as if the joy and my past hardships and past lessons acted as the water for my poetry. Becoming a mother also sparked a love for writing children's stories. I remember telling myself I was writing to have a pastime while staying home with my girls, but now I see it was the literacy seed that my grandmother planted beginning to grow, beginning to bloom within me. Returning to school has given me confidence, opening doors into my heart that I never knew were there. Last year I published my first children's book. The publishing process seemed to be a boot camp, I repeatedly had thoughts of giving up but I didn't. With God in my life I somehow continued striving. I feel like the bloom of a flower longing for the sun. My experiences somehow act as that nourishment that keeps me growing. I will continue to write books and poems, I will release documentaries, screenplays, and songs. Writing, for me, is how I find purpose for my life. It allows me to connect with my grandmother and to God. In the future it will help me connect to the world. I want to do everything in my power to help heal our fallen world. I truly believe when God created me he added the literacy gene into my recipe.