My mother’s words: “You will understand me one day, when you have richened your brain with lots of books you will be reading.”

“Always remind yourself that no matter who you are or what you do, always stay true to yourself, define your own path you go through and don’t overthink about trying to fit in a society but think as you are the one creating it with all your differences.”

The final Draft of My Language and Literacy Narrative: “How it all started?”

My Writing Journey

How did it all start?

I developed my language and writing skills quite early when I was in first grade.

We used to live in a very small village in the middle of mountains, surrounded by nothing else but trees and a river that gave life to the land.

The school was a bit far from the village maybe 30 min. “children walk,” which now I can go there for around 15 min. the max. The school was small, but very warm and welcoming for us as little students that wanted nothing more but to go to school, to grow old and to become “big” like our parents were. I remember when my mother came to my school for the first time to talk to my teacher about my progress, and to see if I needed support in any areas. I was very anxiously standing in the middle of my mother and teacher like a little flower between two big trees and waiting to see how this was going to end.

And then my mother said: “Pёrshёndetje, Unё jam Sofa, nana e Erёs,” that was the first time when I heard her speaking in Standard Albanian, which at that time I had no idea what that even is. I was so shocked and taken aback by such a change in her speaking that it took me some time to realize she was my mother and not somebody else. Usually at home she would say: “A jeni lodh, Un jom Sofa, nona e Eres.” So, hearing this from her I was so surprised but also very much impressed, and I couldn’t wait to go home and ask her more about why she spoke like that, and how it was possible for her to change her way of speaking so suddenly. My mother’s response was: “Nji dit kur t’kish lexu shum libra ki mem kuptu,” which means “You will understand me one day when you have richened your brain with lots of books you will be reading.”

This moment with my mother was a switch change in my life, from a child to another “less child” who wanted nothing else but to grow older and be able to talk like my mother did.

The next day I went to school, I entered the library which was just a small room with only one large bookshelf in one side of the wall, and I asked the librarian a very small but cute lady, to give me some books that would teach me how to speak as they do in books. I remember she started to laugh, and then she said: “Let me get you one book you can start with, and once you finish it come to me tell me what impressed you about it and then I will give you more”. The book was called “Lulja dhe Shega” written by Vedat Kokona. The title in English means “Flower and Pomegranate”.

This book was the first one I ever read, and it changed my life by making me enter a world of fantasies. I saw that there is so much more than what we experience in our everyday lives, and the imagination can send us in so many different spaces we could ever imagine.

From that time onwards, the library was my favorite space in the school for me.

Slowly reading helped me start writing as well, first I was trying to imitate whatever I was reading and then while growing up I gained the ability to think and write my own stories and inspirations.

When my mother noticed I started writing I still remember the joy in her eyes, it was like I gave her all the world, and I felt the pride in her eyes for me.

That look on her made me the happiest child in the world, I wanted nothing more but to make sure I would placate that smile on her face till eternity. Soon after my mother gave me a notebook and told me to keep all my writings in there so I’ll always remember where I started, and who I was, as that defines who I would be one day.

I still have the notebook with me, and I keep it as the most precious thing I have, as it represents a big part of me as a personality and it makes me more complete.

However, two years ago my life changed drastically, I moved to the US, a faraway country from my homeland, very far away from my mother, from whom I was never separated from. I came to a country with a different language, different cultures, it was a really big change for me, I knew English a little bit, but my English was far from perfect, I had difficulties expressing myself fully. English felt strange on me, I ended up mostly closed in myself, I felt like it was not completing me as a person. But my biggest challenge was being apart from my mother, the long distance was draining me, from being with her all the time to not having her around at all, I felt lonely, even though I used to video call her a lot throughout the day, and I continue talking to her twice a day but again that only reminds me of not having her around.

Her absence in my life together with being faced with challenges of  the English as a new language to me, brought an emotional and an artistic block, I stopped writing, with the excuse of spending as much time as I had to learn English and to perfect it, even when I tried writing in my native language, my writings will end up half finished with me being very frustrated and not even understanding what was happening to me, I didn’t tell my mother that, she didn’t know what was going inside of me, or at least I closed my emotions inside not wanting to make her worry more about me. This situation lasted for a long time, till one day my mother asked me: “Era, qershija e Nanes kallxom qka ki?”, that question awaked something in me that I think it was stuck inside and not able to go out, my mother’s question raised another question inside of me: “Is there really something that I have and is not going well, or is it just an illusion created in my mind that it’s not letting me see things clearly? I’m stupid very; very stupid.” Here I have had enough of it. I asked myself does the language define me as a buildup person, does it define my knowledge, or my ability to create? Not really.

So here is the start of my battle with myself for myself.

I challenged myself to do better, and I was determined that I will.

I challenged myself to start talking to people, to create friendships, to not pay that mush intention on my mistakes on spoken English. And that’s what I did, I started to talk more, to express myself more to others, and that’s where I saw that I am not the only one going through this alone, I found friends that had similar experiences, and our English language was all different from each other which made me realize how crucial I was being till then and how normal sounded the situation I was experiencing. I shouldn’t stress that much over trying to speak like a native speaker because that was not doing me any well, except for making me sound like a fool trying to be someone that I am not built for. In the other side my mother was checking up on me constantly, always asking how is my writing going, and even when I started a bit to write in English she would ask me to translate it into Albanian for her, with whom she was never satisfied because she was saying ‘it doesn’t sound poetic,’ and my respond would be of course it doesn’t because it’s meant to be in English not Albanian.

The main point I understood was that if we just let go of all the barriers we feel we have; and if we start to talk freely; clearly; and if we just try to express ourselves completely as much as we can in English or any other language; the way we say words or what accent we use or what language we chose to express our creativity it doesn’t matter but that is what it makes us different and special in our own way.

I just want to add something for the last:

“Please always remind yourself that no matter who you are or what you do, always stay true to yourself, define your own path you go through and don’t overthink about trying to fit in a society but think as you are the one creating it with all your differences.” – Thank you!

“The look on My Mother’s face when I graduated from University of Pristina as a Mechanical Engineer.”