Doraine Bennett

I grew up in Columbus, Georgia with my mother and dad and one younger brother. I had enough aunts and uncles and cousins to fill my summers with adventures. I loved school from the first day of kindergarten when my mother let go of my hand in front of the white wooden house that held my classroom. I was shy growing up. I was a good student, so my t... eachers always knew my name, but I didnt have a lot of friends. I was the quiet one. I started writing in a diary when I was eight years old. I recorded things like what I had for supper and what I made on the weeks spelling test. As I grew older, my diary became a place for saying the things I didnt have the courage to say out loud. I have continued to journal for most of my life, sometimes in a wire bound notebook, sometimes in a pretty cloth-bound book, sometimes on scraps of paper. My journals are a place for sorting through my feelings, for understanding my own story. They hold my deepest sorrows and my greatest joys. I grew up loving to read. My mother signed me up for a book club. I received one book a month for years. Watching my own little library grow was a special treat. I read everywherecurled up on the couch, in the back seat of the car, sitting on a tree limb, hiding under the bed covers with a flashlight. In high school, I was still pretty shy, but I was beginning to change, like a caterpillar going through metamorphosis. I can still remember the day I stood in front on the mirror and looked at myself and thought, Maybe you are pretty. I remember how it felt to realize that I had things to say. And that I could say them. And that sometimes people would listen. I still liked school. I was the kid who liked writing reports and term papers. I would sit in the middle of the floor organizing all my 3x5 inch note cards around me. This was before computers could do all the card shuffling for you. I wrote my first play and my first poems in high school. In college, I was an English major. I wrote lots of term papers. I never minded the hours of research in ...Read More