A writer is who I am, not what I do. Writing is a part of my being.

Larraine Herring, in her book, Writing Begins with the Breath says writing helps us be our authentic self.

I miss the page when I do not come to it. I find myself adrift in a sea of letters that form no words, that are a pile of pick up sticks or a box of legos with no organization or sense of style or design.

To write requires calming the spinning spirals in my brain and then stringing them out into coherent sentences and meaning.

My friend, the San Antonio artist, writer, and preacher, Enedina Vasquez, had a group of us do an exercise where we wrote a poem/prayer on a long strand of ribbon. The ribbon I wrote on is pink, for my granddaughter, Clara. It was, if I remember right not long after she was born. I have always kept the ribbon rolled up in a tight ball, placed in a small box. A few days ago I cleared some of the clutter off my bookcase altar. I unwound the ribbon and reread what I had written. To write the poem/prayer was more than an assignment; it was/is who I am.

The ribbon is now in a larger container, a round bowl. It lays there in spaghetti like swirls, almost alive looking, breathing in the spaces between the pink swirls of pink.

I see the energy of the writing I put on it six or so years ago. I walk by the bowl and find myself wanting to fluff the strands or better yet, finding the beginning and running my fingers over the words, reading them silently or outloud, owning and embracing my writer self. Regular and intimately, one more time, I reweave the early days of being Granny to Clara, the way my Granny (Clara) was to me.

The ribbon poem/prayer lays in the bowl, waits for me, and breathes.

The Ribbon

The ribbon in my life…the women…Granny, Minnie, Mother…Women unnamed before them…sisters, daughters, girlfriends…and now…Miss C…How can one little girl tie all the women together?

Be the tiny stacking doll that joins us all? Becoming a grandmother… having a granddaughter…”Let’s go meet your granddaughter” he (my son-i-law) said.

I held her. I already knew her.

The ribbon joined end to end. Connections run deep.