If you have a voice, and aren’t afraid to spend it…..

 If you have many voices and let them speak to one another in a friendly fashion…..

 If you’re not too proud to talk to yourself out loud….

 If you will ask the questions pressing against your forehead from the inside….

 you’ll be okay.

 If you write three lines down in a notebook every day (they don’t have to be great or important, they don’t have to relate to one another, you don’t have to show them to anyone)…

 you will find out what you notice.  Uncanny connections will be made visible to you.  That’s what I started learning when I was twelve, and I never stopped learning it.

     Every year unfolds like a petal inside all the years that preceded it.  You will feel your thinking springing up and layering inside your huge mind a little differently.  Your thinking will befriend you.  Words will befriend you.  You will be given more than you could ever dream.

                                                                                                                                                                                               -- NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Source: A Maze Me: Poems for Girls