The World According to Jarf

My earliest memories of enjoying writing go back to forming words and then sentences in grammar school with paper "word and letter tiles".  During that activity, two sentences with connecting thoughts told a small story.  We worked on it in school, but we got to practice at home, and my parents always had to say, "put it away" you practiced enough!  I became hooked on words. I was terribly shy, but had those new sentences in my school bag for the nun to discover sitting on my desk.  Writing soon became a way for me to express myself without speaking a word.  In that parochial setting, everyone tried to strive for excellence, a nun stood a boy on his head in a trash can for a dirty desk.  Soon, I began writing my thoughts in a diary, which allowed daydreams and recording thoughts.  My shyness went well into high school, so the journal spoke about the days activities at school, home and with my few close friends.  Actually, my first real connection with a boy was in written form,as a penpal, to someone I met on a vacation at my cousin's.  Very innocently, he wrote to me and my mother, being very strict with me, their oldest, objected and put an end to it after only one letter exchange.  My memory was of laboring for just the right words and then having my best friend read it to make sure it was proper fpr me to send to a boy.