In today’s blog post, I want to explore how I started writing – because it wasn’t something I was initially interested in as a child. In fact, I wanted to be a paleontologist and archaeologist from about the time I was two, all through elementary school. So, what changed?
When I was in the 5th grade, I was introduced to the Diary of Anne Frank. I remember thinking it was so cool we could read someone’s diary, and when the book club orders would be put in at school each quarter, I couldn’t wait to get my copy. I spent hours laying on a towel outside in my backyard wearing a swimsuit and reading that book. I was just eleven years old with a voracious reading appetite and had read most all of the books on ancient history, archaeology, and paleontology in our local library over the years (yes, I was THAT kid). But that summer, the summer between 5th and 6th grade, something changed in me. By seventh grade, I was writing regularly and had tons of ideas that didn’t start panning out into anything productive until I was fourteen and in the ninth grade. That diary had gotten into my blood and made me want to tell the world who I was, just like Anne had wanted to back in the 1940s. She wanted to be a prolific writer, and the way she started was with her journal. So, this girl started journaling. And writing. And soon, primitive poems were coming out. These early years really helped me establish what I wanted to do and say with my own words – which was put myself into text that would be heard, and thought about, and understood, and debated. In 2014 I got the chance to actually visit the secret annex that Anne Frank and family hid in, and it was mind blowing. You see it, you do virtual tours, you want documentaries, you read ALL THE BOOKS, and still nothing compared to being in that building, in her room. Nothing. And thank God for her wonderful father Otto, and good family friends the Gieses, because without them, lives like mine all over the world would never have been changed so drastically. Our minds would never have been opened. We would have thought we were the only young women to experience what she went through as a young adolescent. And talk about all the boys… it really is that insane inside a young girl’s head! So, this is how it began. All those years ago, in the early 90s, on a towel, in my swimsuit, in my backyard, with a book about a dead girl who lived during one of the worst times in human history. And I thought… if she could do it, so could I.
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AuthorDoniell Cushman is a writer based in Spokane, WA. ArchivesCategories |