Caitlin is a mentee with a love for poetry, arts and crafts, and puns. She can often be found geeking out about science with her friends, writing spontaneous songs, or reading by a window. She spent last summer studying slam poetry with Urban Word, and she's soon going to return as a counselor at her book club camp. Above all, she's immensely grateful for the Girls Write Now community.
I spent a lot of summer 2020 sitting underneath trees and trying to find the words to articulate what exactly I was feeling and not really being able to find the words. There’s usually a real feeling of restlessness that accompanies summer for me and I think it was amplified by the pandemic.
This piece is inspired by Erik Simpanen and Lloyd Mullings, both of whom I read about in The New York Times. They were married in September 2020 and changed their last names to Ocean.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about being myself—and what that means for me as a young woman. I wanted to write something that reflected being free in my ability to dream and imagine any life for myself as a girl in the twenty-first century.
My dad and I love art history, and we wanted to bring to light stories of women who have carved and sculpted their place in history! There are so many inspiring women today, but also many women who may be in the shadows of history— and who should be kept alive. This work was a challenge given that I had never worked on a piece through a media platform before. The piece is a product of my learning process and the new mode of storytelling I tried, and the writing I always do!
