I was a weird kid. Sometimes my imagination really got the
best of me.
Before we moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, when I
was about four or five years old, my parents talked about foxes, rabid foxes
that is, and how numerous they had become. According to what they read in the
newspaper, rabid foxes had invaded the city streets of Philadelphia. Well, that
IS ominous news, even for adults.
Of course, I had no idea what rabies was, but I did absorb
the feelings of my parents about the danger foxes were to people. Naturally,
foxes became a source of fear for me. Their size, in my imagination, grew into
mammoth proportions. Somehow I developed the idea that foxes sought out people,
especially children, to prey upon and eat.
About this time, we moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Maybe moving to a place so different from what I knew had something to do with
my increased fear of foxes. I started to have nightmares about them. I worried
about foxes coming out of the woods to get me. My mother was hanging clothes on
the line one day in the back yard. The woods bordered our backyard. I felt the
fear come up in me that a fox might be lurking in those woods. I asked my
mother, “What would you do if a fox came out of the woods to get me?” Mom
answered, “I’d grab you up and take you in the house.”
Although I’m certain Mom wanted to reassure me that she
would let nothing harm me, it validated for me that foxes were definitely
something to fear. I wouldn’t sleep without a night light.
In those days, we had a little amusement park nearby. It had
a small zoo, mostly comprised of animals from the wilds of North Carolina. Pop
was concerned about my fear of foxes. He said I was building “straw men” and
then becoming afraid of them. I didn’t really know what he meant back then.
Anyway, the family went on a trip to Airport Park one evening, and Pop took me
to see my monster, or straw man, in the flesh. I was terrified. And then I saw
it…a sweet little fox only a little bigger than a house cat. What a relief! The
nightmares stopped after that and I began to love foxes. They became a kind of
special symbol to me. When my husband and I bought my first house, Pop gave me
a framed limited edition of a fox print to hang on the wall and a brass door
knocker shaped like a fox.
The reason I wanted to share this story from my personal
history was to show how a budding writer might very well start with a big
imagination and empathy. It may not be obvious back in their early years, but
later on, kids just might start telling stories and then writing them because
they have those two qualities already in place just begging to come out.
Were you a kid with a big imagination? Did you build “straw
men” and then get scared? Did you sense other peoples’ feelings? When did you
realize you wanted to become a writer?
Diverse
stories filled with heart
