To mark the start of our fourth annual girls’ Writing Camp for (a) Change! tomorrow, I looked back over writings created and shared with previous girls’ circles.  I dedicate the following to transitions from childhood through adolescence and on to adulthood. Each at our own pace; each in our own way.

I am indeed honored to hold these young women’s words in trust; and trust that they in turn will move outward into the world with the clarity of purpose they bring to our groups with unparalleled grace, confidence and wisdom.

The following fast-write was written within a spring class of young teen women in response to our opening poem:

I remember that trembling
timorous tremor
of uncertain confusion,

the dire dysfunction
of too old for my age
yet knowing no better.

I recall the aimless
striving to get it right, be good,
enough, the ambiguous

awkward amblings
into unknown
traps tripping, trying

slipping, sliding, shrilling
to none who heard the silence
of scared, scarred,

losing and lost, left
and aloof.
I recall all that

through a shimmer of time,
an unbroken trail of trial,
distrust, so many distracted deeds

without derring-do, just trying
to manage, make it through.
Today all this comes back around

as I circle with young women,
their wide-eyed dreams
shimmering them onward

unbroken unbridled, unbeholden
to the shrieking sorrows of before
unbirthed yet blooming free.

swb