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Unearthing Something Louder BY EMMA MALARDO
Oddly enough, this experience sparked my great interest in writing. I needed an outlet to express the courage I couldn’t speak, and writing did the trick for me. I put my deepest passions and resentments into fine print in hopes that they could one day change the ways of the world, and inspire those like me to speak their minds the way our minds speak to us
Growing up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods, I spent many of my days and evenings outdoors exploring. I collected rocks and built forts, and through it all, my imagination was my driving force. Not much of my childhood was spent watching television inside compared to how much of it was spent swinging from trees and tripping over stumps outside. My hunts for insects and leaf-collecting journeys are surely to blame for my unfaltering determination for the things I’m most passionate about. The paths my young feet had paved are still to this day my dearest pride. Those woods were a labyrinth I could navigate blindfolded, and that’s just the way I liked it. However, still as haunting now as it was to me then, one terrible afternoon changed everything.
I had been gearing up for my next outdoor expedition, with likely a butterfly net in hand or some crazy tool of mine before I heard a deep rumble coming from outside. “Invaders!” I exclaimed with tiny fists up and ready to fight. When I opened the door to peek my head out, I saw the most horrid sight I swore I’d ever see: excavators. I slowly watched as each and every one of my favorite trees hit the ground with a thud until the tears in my eyes made it hard to do so. I ran outside and waved my hands out of desperation. I shouted hopelessly at the workers to stop, though my pleas were drowned out by the loudness of the machines. Pathetically, I sat and cried as my home was destroyed right before my eyes. How could they do such a thing? Did they have any idea how much those trees meant to me? The ones I had carved my name into and the ones I liked to climb did not stand tall and proud anymore but instead were helpless on the ground like I was at that moment.
Something came over me, however. I did not sit back and settle for the first time in my life. I turned my deep anger into a deeper passion. I took strides with purpose and decided then that I would one day change the world. I didn’t have much to my name; no big excavators or scary tree-cutting machines. I had a butterfly net and a dream, and I was going to show the world how that can mean just as much. While I couldn’t stop the trees from being cut down, I didn’t have to agree with it being done. I had opinions, and they were going to hear them. My protests were met with laughter, needless to say. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that someone as young as me wasn’t being taken seriously. Though, if there’s one thing that young Emma hated more than excavators, it was being denied the liberty of her own feelings.
Oddly enough, this experience sparked my great interest in writing. I needed an outlet to express the courage I couldn’t speak, and writing did the trick for me. I put my deepest passions and resentments into fine print in hopes that they could one day change the ways of the world, and inspire those like me to speak their minds the way our minds speak to us. As a writer, I would say the lines that life reads to us do not write themselves; it’s up to us to continue writing upon those that have already been written. Ten years later, I do not have an excavator on hand, but I do have ambition, which is something I like to think means just a little more. I was seven when I found my voice, and now that I’m seventeen, it’s louder than ever.