I have never been much of a girly-girl. While other little girls were playing with their dolls, my stuffed animals followed around on adventures. While other girls showed off their sparkling plastic bracelets, I showed off the cuts and scrapes that I had received while racing through the forest playing war games. But one of the few things I did that could be considered girly, would be the time I danced with ribbons.
I was at the age when finally being able to see over the counter-tops made me feel quite grown-up about myself. One day my mother brought home a box that was full of gossamer pink strips of paper. Two strips were cut for me, each the width of my short arm span. I stood in the middle of our living room, a dazzled grin on my face as I spun the ribbons through the air, one in each hand. Music was playing in the background and I started to dance. To an onlooker, my movements would have looked clumsy, but the beauty of a child at play is that she doesn't mind how goofy she looks. I spun in circles, my bare heels skipping and leaping across the thick carpet. I weaved my arms in spirals and watched as the ribbons responded by twirling through the air. My exhilarating dance finally came to a halt when the music ended, and I stood with the ribbons clasped tightly in my hands, catching my breath. I took to running down the hallway to my bedroom every time the music came on, and reappeared from my room with the ribbons. As most children, I never thought much of what would happen in the future, but made the best of my time in the present.
As I grew older, the ribbons no longer came out when music was played. Slowly my mind strayed to other games, leaving the ribbons in my room. By the time I could rest my chin on the counter-tops, they were thrown out and the box of ribbon sold at a garage sale for a few dollars. I did not cry when I no longer had them. I was such an energetic child that I quickly found other things to take up my time. My large blue eyes were captivated by other items. Such is the attention span of a child.
Now I am much older than that girl of my past that danced with ribbons. I have grown much taller than the height of counter tops. I have lost my childish look as well as actions. I do not dance with ribbons as I once did. I dance in a very different way: with words. My dance is still quite clumsy as every now and then I slip and fall, or get tangled up and lose the rhythm. How would we learn without making mistakes? My bare heels bring me spinning through ideas of stories, ghosts without description or anything that makes up the heart of a story. With my ribbons, I bring the ghosts to life, giving them the ability to breath through words on paper. My dance of words is as exhilarating as my dance of ribbons was to me as a child. To watch my creation come to life on pages, telling me what to write is so rewarding; it can only be compared to the feeling of mirth felt by a child twirling through the living room, watching ribbons flow through the air with a life of their own.