Will the things we wrote today
sound as good tomorrow?
Will be we still be writing
in approaching years,
Stifling yawns on Sundays
as the weekends disappear?
- Elton John and Bernie Taupin -
sound as good tomorrow?
Will be we still be writing
in approaching years,
Stifling yawns on Sundays
as the weekends disappear?
- Elton John and Bernie Taupin -
When I was in the third grade (at Menlo Avenue Elementary in Southeastern Los Angeles near USC and the L.A. Memorial Coliseum) my teacher (Miss Levy...I remember her through the vague, rose-colored prism of youth...not long out of college, still filled with a passion for nurturing young minds, pale and brunette and often smiling as she taught arithmetic and reading and such to her mostly brown and black young charges in room 16) gave us an assignment to write about our "favorite color".
Now as I've grown older, I've noticed a slight preference for blues and earthtones but back then I, being relatively non-discriminating about such things, couldn't really pledge my allegiance to one particular hue. So that night, wanting to get the assignment done before my favorite TV show at the time (Batman, a camp classic that my younger self took oh-so-seriously) came on, I picked a color at random...orange, for reasons which escape me all these years later...and wrote the piece on a sheet of notebook paper, put it in my notebook and gave it nary a second thought.
Miss Levy read our papers the next morning while we were in our "reading time" (an hour each day where we read books we'd gotten from the library at our desks) and at one point she called me up to her desk and with my orange essay in hand she asked me if anybody had helped me write it. It was an odd question to me and I just shook my head and said no. I remember her smiling an odd smile before sending me back to my book. Miss Levy got up and tapped on the door that connected room 16 to room 17 and, after a couple of moments, Mrs. Jacques (a tall, plump blonde who would be my fourth grade teacher come the next year) opened it. Miss Levy and Mrs. Jacques whispered something and Miss Levy handed Mrs. Jacques my paper. They both kept glancing at me as they read. I was feeling incredibly exposed and self-conscious at this point wondering what it was I had done wrong (shy, overly-sensitive third-graders always presume the worst when they become the subject of adult scrutiny.)
That evening, Miss Levy called my mother to ask her if anyone had helped me write my orange essay. My mother, who hadn't even known about the assignment, found it to be an odd question and said no...said that I always did my homework alone and only asked her questions every now and again if I got stuck with something.
The next day, Miss Levy returned the color essays to the class...except for mine, which she announced she was going to read aloud. My young heart almost stopped...I was intrigued, apprehensive, and mortified all at once...and I don't really remember actually hearing her reading my words to my classmates. Afterwards, she returned the paper to me with a big red grade...A+...slashed in fat marker strokes just above the title; she told me to take it home and show my mother and then asked if I could bring it back after having done that. Mutely, I nodded to the affirmative. I took it home...my mother read it and smiled...and I took it back to Miss Levy the next morning. Miss Levy asked if she could keep it and I, wanting the strange fuss to be over, shrugged and said "sure". I never saw the paper again (and I don't remember exactly what I wrote...I vaguely remember something about sunsets, fireplaces, and Halloween pumpkins.)
It only occurred to me years later that that was the point in my life where the writer in me was truly born...that that was the point where I knew that words had power and that I was, on the good days, both a conduit and a thrall to that power.
I think about that episode now and again...when writing is slow and I wonder, as I always do, if I will ever write anything worthwhile ever again (it's a fleeting concern...there's always more writing to do sooner or later...but it comes often enough just the same) and, especially, when I'm culling through pieces I've already written looking for things I think are worthy of submitting for publication and/or competition (a periodic process I've been concentrating on for the past couple of weeks.) The story still makes me smile...wistfully, gratefully, indulgently...after all this time (and I wonder, foolishly I suppose, if Miss Levy still has that orange essay...)
* * * *
Now as I've grown older, I've noticed a slight preference for blues and earthtones but back then I, being relatively non-discriminating about such things, couldn't really pledge my allegiance to one particular hue. So that night, wanting to get the assignment done before my favorite TV show at the time (Batman, a camp classic that my younger self took oh-so-seriously) came on, I picked a color at random...orange, for reasons which escape me all these years later...and wrote the piece on a sheet of notebook paper, put it in my notebook and gave it nary a second thought.
Miss Levy read our papers the next morning while we were in our "reading time" (an hour each day where we read books we'd gotten from the library at our desks) and at one point she called me up to her desk and with my orange essay in hand she asked me if anybody had helped me write it. It was an odd question to me and I just shook my head and said no. I remember her smiling an odd smile before sending me back to my book. Miss Levy got up and tapped on the door that connected room 16 to room 17 and, after a couple of moments, Mrs. Jacques (a tall, plump blonde who would be my fourth grade teacher come the next year) opened it. Miss Levy and Mrs. Jacques whispered something and Miss Levy handed Mrs. Jacques my paper. They both kept glancing at me as they read. I was feeling incredibly exposed and self-conscious at this point wondering what it was I had done wrong (shy, overly-sensitive third-graders always presume the worst when they become the subject of adult scrutiny.)
That evening, Miss Levy called my mother to ask her if anyone had helped me write my orange essay. My mother, who hadn't even known about the assignment, found it to be an odd question and said no...said that I always did my homework alone and only asked her questions every now and again if I got stuck with something.
The next day, Miss Levy returned the color essays to the class...except for mine, which she announced she was going to read aloud. My young heart almost stopped...I was intrigued, apprehensive, and mortified all at once...and I don't really remember actually hearing her reading my words to my classmates. Afterwards, she returned the paper to me with a big red grade...A+...slashed in fat marker strokes just above the title; she told me to take it home and show my mother and then asked if I could bring it back after having done that. Mutely, I nodded to the affirmative. I took it home...my mother read it and smiled...and I took it back to Miss Levy the next morning. Miss Levy asked if she could keep it and I, wanting the strange fuss to be over, shrugged and said "sure". I never saw the paper again (and I don't remember exactly what I wrote...I vaguely remember something about sunsets, fireplaces, and Halloween pumpkins.)
It only occurred to me years later that that was the point in my life where the writer in me was truly born...that that was the point where I knew that words had power and that I was, on the good days, both a conduit and a thrall to that power.
I think about that episode now and again...when writing is slow and I wonder, as I always do, if I will ever write anything worthwhile ever again (it's a fleeting concern...there's always more writing to do sooner or later...but it comes often enough just the same) and, especially, when I'm culling through pieces I've already written looking for things I think are worthy of submitting for publication and/or competition (a periodic process I've been concentrating on for the past couple of weeks.) The story still makes me smile...wistfully, gratefully, indulgently...after all this time (and I wonder, foolishly I suppose, if Miss Levy still has that orange essay...)
* * * *
The opening quote is from the song "Writing"
...music by Elton John, lyrics by Bernie Taupin...
from the Elton John album,
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.
...music by Elton John, lyrics by Bernie Taupin...
from the Elton John album,
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.
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