Words

My high school counselor unapologetically put students in classes according to ability. For four years, these groups of 24 students took all the core classes together. Typically, too, the teachers were fond of the "alphabetically seated by last name" manner of placing us (except for the occasional rebel teacher who made us sit according to the grade we received on the last test: The A row, the B row, the dreaded F row...). So basically for four years I was surrounded in most of my classes by Blankenship, Basham, Brite, Boyd, Butler, Armes, and Allgood. Some years we mixed things up a little and Blankenship sat behind me instead of in front of me, but typically we wound up in the back corner of each classroom, in a row that was led by Adams, Ackers, and Aebersold.

I learned to diagram sentences, memorized Macbeth, passed around Cliff's Notes, analyzed writing pieces, and learned basic Latin with these people. (I also copied off of them in math, but that's another post.) Even better, though, is that I learned to write with them. Really write. To take risks and discuss them and tease each other when they went bad and encourage each other when they worked... We learned together of the power of words, and their ability to evoke emotions, create images, or capture a specific moment in time and to suspend it there--to be experienced time and again. There was a time that I could identify any one of these folks by closing my eyes and hearing an introductory sentence one of them had penned. Our writing back then was like our fingerprints--personal, unique, and distinctive. And fun.

I haven't really thought about writing much since then. I mean, obviously I teach it and blog and graduated college...but I haven't really thought about it. Recently, though, I'm thinking about it more. It hits me sometimes when I'm reading something by Garrison Keillor or Langston Hughes or Francine Rivers or Elisabeth Eliot or Katrina or Rose or Dan Brown. It's that My word, this person has a gift! feeling that makes me feel so indulgent as I read. It's the knowledge that even if I totally disagree with what they're saying, I can appreciate the manner in which they've said it and just enjoy them as writers. It makes me realize that I've forgotten somehow along the way how much fun this thing called writing can be.

Recently Facebook has reconnected me with Blankenship and Boyd and Basham and Allgood and all the rest. They're writing notes there, some are blogging (see Cort in my sidebar), and a couple are even teaching college students how to craft their own works. It's as if a missing piece has been carefully fitted back into the puzzle of my life, or as though I've gone home again somehow, even though I've grown up and live in the suburbs and take far fewer risks these days. You know how some people and some experiences just fit, and although life changes and things jiggle out of place, there's always the perfect spot for that piece that belongs there? That's how reading my friends' words is right now. I'm enjoying it.

It makes me want to write more. And maybe even risk a few run-on sentences, or omit serial commas, or try to rhyme an entire poem with "curry" just to shake things up. Kind of like reverse alphabetical order. It's always good to stay fresh, right?