Big Words

It's funny, how when you're little and everything looks so big. Then you go back to your old house and you realize, it wasn't so big, you were just very small. Things are like that. But I think words are like that too. Who doesn't inwardly just die inside when they hear an adult say things to a small child like "You're a loser," though we may sometimes speak to other adults that way. But it's not the same thing with kids. 

One of my earliest memories was sitting in front of the TV at the little white Tacoma house, with a big coffee can of coloring crayons and coloring books. My Grandpa was there and he looked over my shoulder and said something about my drawing to my mom. "Yes," my mom said, "We noticed that. Kerri is an artist." 

And there you have it, that word, the first word I conciously defined myself with, maybe right after "girl" and my name. My mom put it right there like a seed in my heart and it bore right down into the center and grew there and if anyone tried to pull it out after that, my heart would have come right out with it. "Kerri is an artist."