A Place To Write

“Did you read the post from the other day?” I look at my sister across the counter, before now any blogging I did was not as open as it is now. She fiddles the droopy rose, “Yep. the one about him?” She changes the subject, “You write like the curtain is opening and everyone knows what you are talking about.”
“Yeah I guess I hadn’t thought about it, but that seems about right.” She always knows how to word things. It was her job for so many years it just comes naturally. She doesn’t fumble her words when she talks like me. She is plucky. Four years, to the day my junior but a decade of face time with celebrities has made her speak in an entertaining way.
She is quick witted even making Wyclef Jean create a rap about our grandfather…see, like I said: plucky. Wyclef Jean being from Haiti and our grandparents having built schools there for orphans…and she got him to rap impromptu…about our Papa….our 80 year old grandfather! Another time she stood on a stage before 10,000 screaming fans and announced her pregnancy and the crowd roared a cheer. She is surefooted with words.
“Do you remember that 20 page story you wrote when you were a teenager?” she says still squeezing the spent rose from Mother’s Day.
“Oh my gosh yes… I can’t believe you do…” I pause shaking my head thinking back to when I sat too bored for words, and started that story a million years ago. “Do you know why I wrote that? It was snowing and I was stuck at our grandparents and I was up in Papa’s office. He had all those brand new notepads and all those sharpened pencils… there was only so many 3D boxes I could make! It started snowing and I started writing.”
Her son’s cry from the other room interrupts us, he is long past his nap and he is over all the hub bub at our house. The drenching rain has kept all the kids milling about in the house. She picks him up his face all flushed with wrestling around. His pale curls all in a swirl. Out they go.
I think back on that day of writing in my grandfathers office. Such simple things made me write…sharp pencils and clean crisp paper all laid out neat. I have to make a spot in the learning room specifically for writing.
….stay with me because tomorrow I will get something together.