Sticks and Stones - Beginnings

BEGINNINGS
There are fifty-nine million words in the Oxford English Dictionary. Sam only needs one to start. She wants to tell her story, no, she needs to tell her story just as she needs oxygen. The story is a simple one, about a man, a woman and their daughter. She wishes it ended there but it does not. Instead, it will need thousands and thousands of words for its telling.
On good days, the words come easily, like love. On bad days – nothing; like the hardship of loving. The beginning is the most terrifying. Her hands tremble as she caresses the computer keyboard, fifty-nine million words and she must choose just one...
~
Reams of paper sprawl across the mahogany dining table. On each piece of paper is written a single word. Nature. A nine year old child sits at the table. On the table beside her lie a ruler and a calligraphic template. Her tongue sticks out as she finishes the final stroke. She holds the paper at arm’s length. The downward slope of the N is all wrong. She tosses the page aside.
Taking the ruler, she draws three feint pencil lines exactly 0.5 centimetres apart. She positions the pen on the paper at a 45-degree angle as shown in the instructions and copies the downward slope of the capital ‘N’… Maybe, this time, it will be perfect.
“What are you doing?”
The girl jumps. Her hand jerks and slides across the paper drawing a long diagonal line.
“Oooh, can I have a look,” asks her mum.
“Um, okay.”
The little girl crosses her arms and waits for her mum’s verdict.
“But, such a waste of paper,” says her mum, sounding cross.
“I’m practicing.”
She doesn’t understand what she has done wrong. After all, it was her mother who has bought her the calligraphy pen. She’d been so pleased with it, because it wasn’t a felt one but a proper calligraphy pen with varying width, detachable nibs and real cartridges, with real ink.
“Well?”
The girl’s Mum is waiting for an answer to her question. The girl says nothing but climbs down from the table, packs up the paper and pen and puts them away.
~
Twenty-eight years ago and yet that day is burned forever into Sam’s memory? Her mother was angry, but in hindsight with good reason. It wasn’t long after her Dad had finally moved out. Money was tighter than it had been and her mum had taken on some home-work, to make ends meet. No wonder she was annoyed at Sam’s wastefulness.
Is that why she remembers it, because it happened so close to when her Dad left? Or was that the day when her obsession with writing, with words began. Or, did an otherwise healthy passion cross the line one-and-a half years ago, after she gave birth? That is the trouble with beginnings.
Why nature? She’d always loved animals. At the same time, she’d been obsessed with foxes and painstakingly copied pictures of them from various books, no doubt wasting more reams of paper in the process. And yet, there are so many other words she could’ve chosen, long words (commonsensical), small ones (sin) and words that weigh heavy on the soul (holocaust).
Then there are the words that terrify. Words like mother, which the OED defines as ‘a female parent’. The definition is succinct and technically accurate and yet cannot hope to capture the rollercoaster of emotions Sam has experienced since becoming one.
Mother. Nature. Mother. Nature. Mother Nature…