A Pen of One's Own

My youngest asks if she can have a pen of her very own.  We're standing in the check-out line of the grocery store, and we notice a pack of ball-point pens. 

"What would you do with a pen of your own?" I ask.

"I would have so much fun!" she says.  "I would write my name one hundred times with my own pen!"  

"Yes," I say.  "You can have a pen of your own."

I think about all the ways you grow as a person and as a writer.  One day, you press the pen to the page, and it begins.  It always begins somewhere, even if it's just writing your own name down in ink.  This is me, myself, written right here. 

It's quiet in the house because a little writer is writing with her own pen. 

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Did you have a childhood object that symbolized something so important?