It all started with that first swipe of chalk on a standing chalkboard, that somehow appeared in our bedroom. Since I was older with better handwriting, (said me), I established myself as “teacher” over my brother. I was already fascinated with all things school. So, chalk, a board and an always available “student,” were all a bossy, school-crazed, big sister could want.
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That first swipe of chalk led to predictions that I would be a writer. A family friend deciding to help the prediction along, bestowed me with a “Nothing Book” one Christmas. I flipped through the pages, puzzled. I felt the light air brush against my hand as I flipped through it, trying to figure it out. It had front and back covers and nothing but empty pages in between. Naturally, I looked at the front cover again, taking in its meaning for real, this time. So I was to fill the pages. The “about'' was going to be up to me!
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I wish I could say I filled every page in that book. I got distracted: friends, school, adolescence. I was also cultivating my love for piano, singing and dramatic writing with talented friends at the church I grew up in. My "Nothing Book," or more aptly, my kinda something book, ended up in the bottom of my closet.
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After graduating from New York University with a B.S. in English, I had real students, who sometimes had the same resigned tolerance toward my teaching skills as my brother had. I didn’t know then that my career path was really a lifelong journey of personal learning and re-creating; mostly learning about me and learning how to do relationships.
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Since that revelation, I expanded my teaching experience to include two more degrees, younger children and adults, college exam prep tutor, piano teacher and remote ESL instructor. Each new educational mode urged me to reshape my initial love of teaching. But every now and then I was forced to acknowledge that buried dream of being an author - of writing something I hoped could do for someone else, what so many other books had done for me: awakened, inspired, touched, strengthened, and yes, swept away!
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A couple years ago I started intentionally scribbling - putting down snatches and snippets of what was in my head. I had to reintroduce myself to the pre-teen me who had time to observe the world through her window, quietly read, dream and imagine. In the midst of that, I still had to adult, relocate, make a living, watch a dear one elegantly die and continue to stand in my faith in the Christ, my mother nurtured in me since infancy.
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Now Sage Finds Summer: A Sage Spencer Story emerges with this Brooklyn/Long Island girl/woman, residing in South Florida, with the world navigating its way through a pandemic. Sage and I couldn’t have gotten through this without the community of best friends, family & spouse, who read, listened, edited, website created and encouraged. South Florida gave me Kimberley Kaye, artist and illustrator who gave sight and life to Sage and her world. Needless to say, Sage and I will keep looking out the window for what’s next.
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