Once a Writer...

This morning, I stumbled upon this piece I wrote about six years ago as part of a course for my Master's program.  I thought I would include it here.  Since this blog is all about my own "random thoughts," anything goes.  Right?

I suppose every “great” occurrence has a beginning.  Come to think of it, even the not-so-great occurrences have beginnings, too.  Nevertheless, be it great or not, the first writing memory I have is from first grade.  We got a new program at our school called Writing to Read.  Once a week, we went to the computer lab where we listened to a cassette on headphones and typed letters from the keyboards to make words.  I can’t recall a single thing I heard on those tapes, but my mother says the first “composition” I brought home looked something like this:

Itwasallonebiglongstringofwordsthathadnospacessoitwasverydifficulttoreadbutshetried.

That’s when she led me over to her old typewriter to show me something neat on the keyboard.  Gently, she lifted the cover from the worn-out keys and pointed to a long, plain bar in the center of the bottom row of keys.

“Hit this,” she said, “after you finish a word and it will put some ‘air’ between them.” 

I was amazed at this discovery.  I begged her to put some paper in the typewriter so I could test it out.  Finally, she obliged, and I found that she had told me the truth.  I should have known she did.  Why would she lie about the “air bar?”  Anxiously awaiting the next visit to the computer lab, I began to get nervous about trying this at school—what if it didn’t work?  After all, a computer is different than a typewriter.  As luck would have it, it worked.

I am unsure of the time lapse, but soon after, I brought home the following story (I have seen a copy with my own eyes, so I know it really exists):

                        The Man

            The man lives in my house.

            I know the man he is my father.

            He is very cute and handsum.

            He loves my mama very much.

            Of course, he loves me and my brother

            But he shor does love our mama.

Okay, so it’s not going to win any awards, but I think it’s pretty good for a first grader.  Plus, there’s plenty of “air” between the words. 

I must have written at least a hundred things after that, but I can’t remember writing actual pieces until eighth grade.  Either on the first day of school or very soon after, my English teacher gave us an index card and said she was going to read us a story.  We were supposed to write something we liked about the story on one side and something we would change about it on the other.  Oh, boy.  I loved a good story!  When she finished, I carefully penned my opinions and waited patiently for further instructions.  After she collected the cards, she told us she had written the story in college.  Well, I began to panic.  I couldn’t tell a teacher that I didn’t like the way her story ended!  She’d surely hate me forever.  That was a dirty trick!  She should have told me that was her story.  What did she mean anyway, telling us to find something we wanted to change? 

It wasn’t until much later that I realized that what my teacher had done was not a trick, but rather a way to get us to accept constructive criticism of our own.  Later that school year, our area was hit with a huge ice storm.  We were without power for several days.  One morning, as I sat in the living room, I heard the travel alarm clock ticking away in its case on the coffee table, and inspiration struck.  If I didn’t know what that was, I rationalized, I might think it was a bomb.  Yeah, a bomb.  So, I got out my notebook and a pencil and went to work.  (I couldn’t use the typewriter—there was no electricity!)  A few hours—and eight pages—later, a short story was born.  In it, the two main characters were spending a romantic Valentine’s Day at a 4-Star hotel, and the bellhop heard their travel alarm clock ticking in their suitcase and thought they had a bomb.  Looking back at it now, it is very funny. 

I eagerly took the story to school and showed it to my English teacher.  She encouraged me to consider including it in my portfolio.  She even read it to the class.  I was bursting with pride.  My mother the English teacher must have been impressed, too, because she took it to school with her and let some other teachers read it. 

My portfolio that year did include that story, and three other pieces I felt good about.  The day they announced the scores, I was a wreck.  No one in our middle school had ever received a Distinguished, so I wasn’t really expecting one, but there was always hope.  At break, some of my friends raced to my classroom to drag me to Mrs. Hayes’ room to find out my score.  They just knew it would be good.  When she told me I had made a Distinguished, I nearly passed out.  She made me sit down for a minute, and then she hugged me and let me leave.  I nearly ran down the hall to find my mom.  (She taught at the high school, but was there observing an intern that day).  I had just two minutes left to talk to her and get to class.  Breathlessly, I started to tell my already-smiling mother my good news.  Somehow, she just didn’t seem as excited as I’d expected. 

As it turned out, one of the math teachers had seen her at the grocery store the day before and told her about my score.  I felt cheated.  This was the best news I would ever have, and the only chance I would ever have to tell my mother, and I was robbed of the opportunity.  Hoping to hear an, “I’m proud of you,” I hung my head and shuffled back to class.  I liked that math teacher less than I ever had before, and I took the first opportunity I had to tell her how upset I was.

 
With high school came a working portfolio every year.  My senior year, we had to submit another formal portfolio to be scored.  This time, we were assigned what we called a “flex” teacher, whose job it was to help us revise and edit our portfolios.  My flex teacher refused to read my portfolio because he thought it was too long.  This didn’t set well, either.  But by this point, enough of my mother’s personality had been developed in my own that I told him exactly what I thought about it.  He at least pretended to read my portfolio.  My mom was the cluster leader at the time, so I knew there was no way I would know my score before she did.  After much hard work, and last minute revisions, I submitted another Distinguished portfolio.

During my college years, creative writing gave way to research papers and essays.  It seemed that was all I wrote.  In one class, I had to write a math autobiography; in another, a personal narrative.  Otherwise, I had no “required” method to let those creative juices flow.  I still wrote occasionally for myself, but I found I didn’t have a lot of time for that.

Now, I write with my students [and, of course, here on my blog].  When we have sharing time, I always volunteer if no one else does, just to get the ball rolling.  It gives me a release—an outlet—a way to express how I feel, what I think, and what I sense around me.  Where will my journey as a writer end?  I can’t say for sure; but I hope it’s with the last gulp of “air” between my words when my life’s journey approaches its final destination.