More than Writers

We were talking about the influences of our childhood when my husband asked: “What’s the one thing you would tell your nine year old self?” I pictured the shy geeky girl, dominated by her more confident best friend, proudly amazed to be selected for the school choir. The girl who barely touched school dinners, relished climbing trees, and, an early feminist, argued over equal chores with her brother. The girl who adored the library and English homework because she could immerse herself in reading and writing. I would tell her that her life was going to turn out to be so much more than she could imagine, even in those stories she wrote. I’d not spoil the surprise with details – how she would prove more popular with boys than her best friend, beat her academic older brother to university, travel across three continents and work in an obscure African country. How she’d marry a man who would teach her to dream even bigger. How she’d experience some of her biggest dreams...