Part 1: Where I'm From

Scar Story:

When I was 10 years old, I went to my friend Claire’s house to go swimming. After swimming for a while, I got out of the pool to show off my dive. My feet were wet, and the deck was made of slate and was slippery. As I was running, I slipped and my knee scraped the ground. Blood streamed down my knee. I quickly wiped it away without much thought and completed one of my very ungraceful dives. It turned to a scab and a few months later I was honestly surprised when it had left me a scar.

*****Speed revision: As I was running, I slipped and my knee scraped the ground

While (As) I was running, I lost footing (slipped) and my knee scraped the pool deck (ground).

My take on Mentor Text:

I am from Fishers Island, New York.

From the peaceful summer days.

I am from Isabella Beach

(clear, sunny,

smelling of low tide)

I am from the Fishers Island Club

the long, green golf course

whose tough greens and strategic bunkers i remember

as if I were playing them now.

A Complicated Place

Fishers Island is a complicated place, but it was a playground for young me. The small island off the coast of New London, Connecticut is the place where I have my first memories of feeling independant. I spent my days away from my family- biking from the docks where I sailed to the tennis courts where I took lessons to the golf course where I was forced into playing a round with a foursome of boys even more immature than myself. This simplicity was quickly spoiled as I grew older. My concern on the island was no longer playing with friends and goofing off at my lessons but it became a contest with the focus on who was the best. I quickly withdrew from the race.

A Place I felt Heard

A place that I felt heard is with Grace. Grace has been my best friend since the fifth grade. She was there through all my middle school weirdness and even stuck around through my knee high sock face. Horrifying, I know. Grace not only listens but understands. When you're around somebody as much as Grace and I are around each other, you become similar enough to understand each other below the surface level. Even when far apart at separate colleges, I read her texts in her voice and understand the incoherent videos she sends to me- and I know that she listens the same way about me.

Peer edit: Wesley Millet

Mentor editor: Peter Gaillard (Grad student, English major)