Baby’s first signature

The “S” is backwards, like a cheap stereotype, and only the “R”s are lowercase, but every time Sierra writes her name it’s as if hope for the written word has been awakened again.

No hyperbole. Watching a child learn to write is as powerful as you can get.

Because, you see, I thought I’d spent the last seven years learning how to write. No. Not right. Instead, I spent the last seven years how to write better or how to write for the internet or how to write copy and scripts.

But Sierra is learning how to write. Full stop. End of story. She is not learning style or function, but the basic steps of writing. Not first steps, but first phonics. Not first word, but first signature.

I have written a lot of things in my life. Some of it has been okay and some of it has been decent and some of it might even have been good if you ask the right people but none of it compares to the power of each letter Sierra pushes out of her pencil.

Every. Letter. S. I. E. R – twice. A.

The potential and promise of every letter, each more important and amazing than anything I’ll ever hope to write.

This was lovingly handwritten on March 28th, 2011