Dreamer

Emma carefully keeps some of herself back.  I think her rich imagination provides such a lovely place for her to reside she is hesitant to leave.  Also, she's quiet and tentative in ways I understand very well.

She's always writing.  Lately it's been Green Eyes.  I marvel at her confidence and staying power.  She's spent hours on a laptop, tapping out words.  She's had a big smile on her face the whole time.  (I love Emma's smile.  Her true and genuine smile, I think it could melt a glacier.)

I have my own story to write and it doesn't receive nearly the attention Emma's story did.  I'm stunted because my to do list is longer than Emma's, but really, my confidence and staying power are the trouble.  I write and wonder who would ever want to read it because it's not good enough.  I drift to sewing a rug because that's safer.

I want to be like Emma.

She turned over the laptop to me to let me read.  More than any conversation we could have, she's given me a window into herself.  I see her in her characters.  I see her proclaiming who she is.  I see her humor.  I see her imagination.

It's a fantasy story, my children's favorite kind.  It's also contemporary, set in a neighborhood like ours and a school like Emma's.  I'm learning a lot.

Here's the very beginning of the prologue:

I see a girl who laughs and runs with the wind.  I see green eyes that shimmer and dream and change.  She runs wild and free, through tall grass and beneath vast azure skies.

She is swift.

Confident.

Beautiful.

She runs to the edge of the cliff.  She runs fast and does not slow.  She comes to the edge and does not stop.

She jumps, but does not fall.

She changes, grows.

Now I see a dragon that laughs and soars back around.  I see green scales that shimmer and dream and change.  She climbs, wild and free into the blue.

She ascends to the heavens and dips to learn the mysteries of the ivory clouds.

Emma pretty much takes my breath away.

One of my favorite pictures of Emma.  Taken years ago at Disneyland. (I like how Mark is captured in the background as well.)