The Writing on the Wall

Growing up with 4 older brothers and 1 older sister in a two-story, 4 bedroom farmhouse, we didn't have much room for privacy. The house had a basement but it was a spooky, damp utility basement. No one dared go down there alone. However, the entrance to the basement was another story!
Right inside the basement door on the wall mom and dad started a measuring chart where they could chart our growth. My older siblings thought if mom and dad could write on the wall so could they. So for the next eighteen years our lives were chronicled on the wall.
We did a lot of reading and writing on the wall. It might be simply "Mary loves Gary," or it might be a short story of what seemed like an important event in the life of one of my siblings. We loved writing on the wall. Granted some of the things we wrote about each other clearly portrayed sibling rivalry. Other writings were more like journal entries, revealing some pent up emotions.
For me, my first writing on the wall was writing my name with a crayon. Since I was the youngest child, it was the lowest piece on the wall. We added some of our own artwork occasionally, but mostly we wrote words. We were all writers. Authors. I'm sure mom gained a lot of insight into each of her children when she read the wall. Some things she probably wished she hadn't read! But it was our wall and our time to express ourselves. We were developing as writers.