Don't Walk.

It was sometime in March, early morning on a busy weekday when I was holding the hand of my great aunt, whom I was very close with at a very young age. Much of the sun was concealed in rolling cloud cover, but there came a moment or two where the warmness of energy sank deeper than the lulling breeze. Much of the walk consisted of a stroll around systematically colored stucco houses. People all around me crossed paths from every direction while the roar of yellow school buses waxed and waned through the grid of roads. When we would come up on an intersection, I would fix my eyes on the different traffic signs, trying to visualize what the flashing lights and pattern were trying to say to me. One sign in particular I would continue to remember to this very moment was the flashing lights pulsating in vibrant color of red that read “DONT WALK.” The first time I came across this sign, I remember trying to discern what it was trying to say and coming up with the simple phrase of “Don’t Milk” due a developing imagination and an expanding vocabulary. Along with these invigorating walks, Sesame Street played a huge factor in how much signs and visual learning helped me develop a vocabulary and ascribe meaning to the world around me. My mother and father noticed my heightened sense of fondness to reading traffic signs, railroad markers, and other vibrant markers throughout the suburban landscape of my childhood; that same year, Santa brought me a train set with large, self standing traffic signs carved out of wood.
By the time I was ready for kindergarten, I was beginning to read simpler books, and was beginning to write. One assignment in particular that stood out to me the most was the second assignment (which was a comprehensive follow up assignment to my first one) that asked me to spell out my first and last name, along with my address this time. Instead of completing the assignment, I threw a seemingly uncontrollable tantrum and cried myself to sleep because my last name was far too complicated for me to write and spell out compared to single syllable words like cat. Instead of still wishing that I had a different last name, I managed to complete the assignment with relative ease the following morning before I left for my third day of class. That same school year towards the end of it and my graduation into first grade, I wrote and mailed a letter to the President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton. I owe much of my positive academic experience to my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Nagel.