A Letter to Myself

Author's Note: So I was struggling to decide what to write for my next conference. Then I looked at some writing prompts at creativewritingprompts.com and did Writing Prompt #21, which states "Write a letter to the 10-year-old child you had been." When I was 10 I was in 5th grade, and that was my last year in Michigan. It was really fun and interesting writing this piece, so I hope you like it!

Dear 10-year-old Becca,

Right now you are ten years old. You are in 5th grade and have Mrs. Scott as a teacher. I’m assuming you really love your life right now. Sam is now your best friend, and you’re really close to Kaley, Breanna, and Rachel. And trust me. Sam is your best bet as a friend. She will never abandon you, and you will never get in any fights. She will never tell anyone any of your secrets, and she will always be there for you. Kaley, Breanna, and Rachel are okay friends, but you really don’t need them. You will meet better people in the future. Oh, and you just got your ear’s pierced this summer! Well, for a second time. Remember when your left earlobe got all red in school last year? And then you went home and took the earring out and blood was spurting everywhere? Ouch. That must’ve hurt real bad. But I’m glad you decided just to let them close up and get them pierced yet again. But this letter is mainly to tell you that your dad will get a job offer at MetalTEK in Wisconsin. Him and your mom will go house hunting for a couple of days, and then come back and tell you that they are thinking about moving to Wisconsin. At first you will be really excited, and tell everyone in your class. But then you start to get scared all the time. You won’t want to do anything at school, because you feel like it’s pointless because you might be moving to a different school anyways. That Sam won’t be your best friend anymore, and that you will be a complete loser at your new school. And don’t freak out the day that your parents decide that it would be the best thing for your family to move to Wisconsin. The pay at MetalTEK will be more, the schools are much better, and there will be more opportunities in life. The moment you find out you’re moving, you will get your mom’s phone and go to your room. You’ll immediately dial Sam’s mom’s phone number and you’ll ask if you can speak to Sam. You’ll tell her that you’re moving and you’ll both start balling your eyes out. You’ll ask if you can go over to her house, and you walk over there. Then you both cry together. Just cry. Please don’t try to stop it. Just hug each other, and cry, and let everything out. Just let everything out that you’ve been holding inside you for so long. Just cry with your best friend and spend every waking moment with her until Friday, August 21, 2010 at 4:30 PM. But please, please, please do not let the fact that you’re moving make you sad or depressed. Just think of the good things. At your new school, you can start over. You can try and not be that shy girl that you’ve always been. Meet new people, and make new best friends.Focus on getting good grades and meeting new people. But I just wanted to warn you about the Wisconsin thing. And just have fun being a normal 10 year old girl, and worry about things that any other 10 year old would worry about.

Love,

The Future You.

The Journey of Life

Authors Note: This is a Literary Analysis on "The Bean Trees." I focused on trying to show my understanding of the book. Enjoy! This essay is also being used for my District Writing Assessment.

“It was one of the many times in Turtle’s and my life together that I was to have no notion of what to do.”(pg.281) Taylor Greer, a young woman from Pittman County, Kentucky doesn’t know what she wants with her life. So she heads west in her battered, ragged car, hoping to start over with a blank slate. But during a series of unexpected events she somehow ends up with a three-year-old American-Indian girl named Turtle. The Bean Trees, written by Barbara Kingsolver, has an admirable story-line because of its pronounced sense of love, friendship, and abandonment.

Love is the greatest source of healing – it heals hearts. When Taylor meets Turtle for the first time, she doesn’t know what she should do. She doesn’t know how to be a mother, and she doesn’t even have a home to live in. Yet she decides that she should not care about their possessions, or how much money they have – but to just love Turtle with all her heart. Taylor discovers bruises all over Turtle’s body and finds out that she must have been through some sort of traumatic experience. Also that Turtle had most likely never been loved before, and had never had a mother that truly cared for her. Taylor and Turtle’s bond is caused by love – and that bond is what keeps them together throughout the entire novel.

Although love may have a great effect on The Bean Trees story-line, friendship is also another main factor in this novel. When Taylor and Turtle arrive in Tucson, Arizona they decide to stay there permanently. One of the many people that they meet on their journey is Mattie. Mattie runs the “Jesus Is Lord Used Tires” shop, and she gives Taylor a job there, as well as a place to stay. But eventually Taylor is going to have to get her own place – or share an apartment with someone else. She eventually finds an apartment and lives there with a woman named Lou Ann Ruiz and her son Dwayne Ray. Lou Ann and Taylor become the best of friends, and share the experiences of mother hood with one another. They become independent, strong women and mothers, who know how to effectively run a household. They depend on each other for life advice, and they both play a huge role in each other’s lives.

Despite the fact that friendship plays an extensive aspect in this novel, abandonment has to be what brought all these characters together in the first place. While Taylor is working at the tire shop, Mattie introduces her to Estevan and Esperanza - a young married couple who came to the United States illegally from Guatemala. But they could be arrested or killed in America since they had come illegally -- they were not safe in Tucson, Arizona. They had to abandon their country because it was too dangerous. Their daughter Ismene had been kidnapped and adopted into another family. Taylor did not want to have Turtle taken away from her either. Social services was going to come and take Turtle away from her because she wasn’t her legal guardian. And the only way to keep Turtle was to get her birth parents to sign her over to Taylor Greer. The only problem is that Taylor has no idea where any of Turtle’s relatives could be. So Taylor takes Estevan, Esperanza, and Turtle to Oklahoma to keep them safe and to somehow find a way to adopt Turtle. This expedition linked them all together because of their own reasons of abandonment -- and they just wanted to be safe with their loved ones.

A commendable novel that contains a great sense of love, friendship, and abandonment is The Bean Trees, written by Barbara Kingsolver. This book is extremely passionate about being loyal to your family and friends, while being loyal to yourself. Never forget to love people with all your heart. Because one day, you might need all the love you can get.

Only the Heart Matters

Author's Note: This is a quote interpretation that I decided to right. I wanted to do something that I had never done before, so I choose this quote from John Elroy Sanford. Enjoy!

“Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.”  ~ John Elroy Sanford

Beauty can mean two things. One is about your looks. People may say you’re, “pretty”, or “beautiful”. Another meaning of beauty is beauty within your heart. Being beautiful can mean having a beautiful personality. Caring about someone, and loving people for who they are, not just what they look like on the outside. Imagine if we were to have no skin, and no looks. Just looking at someone and being able to see straight into their heart; not having to judge them on their looks before actually getting to know the person. “Beauty may be skin deep,” means that not everyone will be able to tell that you are a real, caring person, because the human eye can only see the skin.

In this quote, I think that the meaning of ugly is based off of personality, and how you act. Ugly can mean rude or violent. “Ugly goes clear to the bone”, means that your entire personality is consumed with selfishness, and only caring about yourself.

Overall, I think that this quote means that not everyone can see the beauty within, only the looks that they are capable of seeing. But anyone can tell if you are an ugly person, and have an ugly heart, because there is no way of escaping the eyes and hearts of the people around you.