Sentenced to Hard Writing

Kitten Rimsky waiting for release from kitty jail felt my pain.

The new kid at school – those words strike terror in many a heart, and the new kid in fifth grade was ME! I was terribly shy, small for my age, and so blind that I had to sit on the front row, right under the teacher’s nose. In other words, who was going to talk to the misfit?

I’d made a few friends in my new neighborhood that summer, but not one was my age. Even worse, there were hardly any girls. By September, I was equally eager to start school and dreading that room of 30 strangers. (I was a baby boomer, so classes were always packed.) I was about to discover something even scarier. It was much like those recurrent nightmares when you take an exam for a class you didn’t attend. At my old school I made straight A’s, but Miss Jeter was asking us to name the noun and verb in a sentence. What were those?!? And what was this crazy new math?!? Shy as I was, I wasn’t about to ask. 

I caught on to the schoolwork quickly enough – hallelujah! Unfortunately, fitting in didn’t really happen until junior high (7th grade) when we all went to a new school. Loneliness made me do something very unlike me: I talked in class. To a boy even! Miss Jeter was having one of those frazzled teacher days and warned us, “If anyone says another word…” Knowing Rog, he couldn’t resist a dare. He made some since forgotten comment. I replied with something equally silly. Even an introvert can be talk-deprived.

Punishment was swift: write a five-page essay on “Why I Should Not Talk in Class” –

Once I get past my writer’s block, time still flies along with my pen. I soon handed Mama my tragic tale. Because I talked in class, I never learned anything, had no job skills.  I was trouble, so I attracted the wrong sort of friends and turned to a life of crime: armed robbery. When I finally got out of prison, I was shunned by everyone who knew me. People would cross the street to avoid talking. They’d point at me and hiss, “There’s the ex-con.  She used to TALK IN CLASS!” Mama laughed till she cried and added, “Dear Miss Jeter, please return this essay to me when you’ve finished it.”

To compound my shame, Miss Jeter insisted on reading our essays aloud to the class. The whole class roared at my writing. I was shocked! I didn’t know I was funny. I discovered my funny bone and my ability to entertain others in that essay. In third grade, I learned I could write, but in fifth grade my classmates learned it, too. 

Thank you, Miss Jeter, and

a big thank you to all good teachers.

P.S. It may be that Rog discovered his gift for writing that same day. In high school, he wound up in my only small class: Creative Writing. He told our instructor, Mr. Wheeler, about my fifth-grade essay. I’d had Wheeler in 11th grade English. He was surprised. “She was in my class six months before I found out she COULD talk,” he said. 

I had discovered I liked talking on paper.

My Poetry Spot

A cozy chair, large notebook, pen, quiet room, wine or tea …the poetry comes to join me, sometimes a cat or two will follow.