acorn tender_square my mother saved an entire manila folder of sheets, fifteen years of my report cards, from junior kindergarten to grade 13. "when you grow up not having anything from your past," she said, "you focus on making sure your kids do." so many crayon self-portraits with yellow stringy hair and big smiles. photographic stills from student-of-the-month wins. what surprised me most is that the essence of self was there from a young age. my teachers wrote that i was sensitive to the feelings of others, that i communicated extremely well, had a vivid imagination and loved stories and sharing new ideas in groups. my grades were routinely high, a part of my history misremembered. "you were always a browner," my mother insisted. and yet i always felt like i was falling short academically. in high school, it wasn't enough to get a's, i wanted a-pluses, even though i was well-rounded in all subjects and took extra art credits on top of my course load. when we focus so intently on what we're not, we end up obscuring all that we are. 230121 what's it to you? who go blather from