All five of us in this family love words, and we all are capable of producing expressive writing, sometimes even beautiful writing. Not only are we capable, but we’ve all done it, if only under pressure of school assignments! At Brad’s parent-teacher conference, our youngest writer showed us his poetry, which made me laugh and cry in the space of a few minutes.
John, Allie, and–I learned this week– Brad, have to pull writing out of the depths, have to go down into themselves for awhile before a single word hits the page. Allie’s essays for English class are truly labors of love—and misery. After she’s been sitting at the computer for an hour, I’ll come in and see a couple of sentences. The end result, though, is fabulous: careful, insightful, expressive, and genuinely, passionately engaged with the universal subjects at hand. She’s almost always pleased, if a little shell shocked, when she finally completes one of these essays.
In nursing school, John had to write about his ideal death. I learned some remarkable things about him from that assignment, and his instructor was blown away by both the thoughts and the writing. I’ll treasure what he wrote forever. As is always true, people say things when they write that wouldn’t be expressed quite the same way in speech or in action.
Sylvia and I on the other hand, the family chatterboxes, make it up as we go along. We just start writing, delete what we don’t like, add some more, and figure out where the thing is going as it moves forward. Editing comes later. My “just get started” writer girl has actually written a pretty significant chunk of a novel, in chapters that dart around, sparkle, and revel in the delights of a fantasy quest world she has created. She keeps changing the story because she’s growing up so fast that she can’t decide if what she wrote before is too childish. (It isn’t.)
The shared propensity for expression through writing—and the very different ways we all approach it– became more clear to me this week when I fell into this mind-expanding conversation on the topic with the family’s most junior writer. I was sitting at the dining room table with my laptop on, doing something, and then he and I started talking. Before I knew it, I was amazed at his insights, and asked him if I could write down what he was saying. So he said,
“You’re going to interview me?”
I said, sure! That’s a great idea! So here is a virtually verbatim account of our conversation. His reflection on how much he enjoyed writing about crabs having wrestling matches on the sand just slays me.
Brad: “When I write, I just pretend like I’m talking to someone and then I write because that’s easier than thinking that you’re writing–except with poetry because people don’t casually talk when they’re reciting a poem.”
Mom: “Tell me again how the process works.”
“Usually I just sit there and think for like a half an hour, which is the whole period of poetry. I just sit there, but once I figure out the theme I can just make a quick sketch in my head and write it all down as a rough draft”.
“Why is it that you enjoy writing more now than you used to? Say writing about the frog (earlier in the school year) compared to writing poetry?”
“I would have put a lot of detail into my writing, but they just rushed us, basically. So I didn’t have much time and then I can’t type, and we had to do our publishing on the computer so that took me like a million years.”
“But why do you like poetry better? Or do you?”
“Well, I like them both the same, it’s just I only like poetry when I have how ever…a long amount of time to do it.”
“And do you sometimes have enough time in school?”
“Well, usually no, because…I don’t know. Usually they’re expecting students who basically just get the work done so they can have fun.”
“But is the work of writing poetry kind of fun in itself?”
“Well, yeah I guess, if you have enough time to do it.”
“What’s your favorite poem you’ve written or your favorite piece of writing?”
.
“Salt Bay poem.” [about a special place in Ireland during our month there in 2007]
“Why?”
“Well, I just, first of all, I LOVE sea creatures, they’re my favorite living things on earth, and Salt Bay had the most interesting sea creature that I have ever seen. And we actually got to feed some of ‘em.”
“I wish we that poem here with us, but is there any particular line from that poem that you can remember that you really liked writing?”
“Well, I sometimes like to write sentences with words that you don’t really expect to hear, like one line: “crabs having wrestling matches over pieces of salmon that we threw in the water.:” You don’t expect to hear “wrestling matches” in a sentence.”
“Is there any other favorite piece of writing that you’re really proud of?”
“Mmmmm….not really, but I like the April one.” [ about sledding with our dog—a memory he had, since April died this past spring]
“So, can you remember any particular line from that poem?”
“Well, actually not really.”
“Do you remember the process of thinking about that poem and getting it started?”
“Well, yeah, kind of.”
“So tell me about that.”
“I was…well, actually, I can’t really, no I don’t remember, but I assume it was probably something like I was thinking about winter and then I was thinking about April and then I combined those two, which turned into sledding with April. And then I thought that would be a good theme for my next poem.”
“How did your teacher get you to start thinking about writing poetry? Did she read you poems?”
“Well, as usual the first few days of poetry class, like normal classes, they’re just like showing you examples, which is reading me poems. And then they let us write poems, rough draft. And we had to write five of them.”
“Do you remember anything about what it was like to listen to good poetry that got you inspired to write your own?”
“Not really. It wasn’t really that inspiring, actually.”
“You were more inspired by your real-life experiences?”
“Yeah.”
“I think you like words. They’re just fun to play around with.”
“Yeah, I, and I especially like thinking up big words that I know.”
We stopped there. I was beaming. It was like getting this direct insight into something that would be so easy to overlook—how this kid’s brain actually works, what moves him intellectually and emotionally and how those things are intertwined. It was a beautiful gift.
Apparently, he received his own treasure from this conversation too. When I read him back the transcript, he was delighted. He did, however, ask if I could take out the “like” words that were just fillers. He said it sounded okay when he said that, but not so good when I read it back. So the above is an edited version in that respect.
And then, when the big sisters came home, he was eager to tell them, “Mom interviewed me!” He was proud of his words and his thoughts in yet another way.
So much lies beneath the surface in the way our kids grow every day. I wish I could catch these falling stars more often. I think I need to do more interviewing!
What a great mom you are for taking the time and having the insight to do this with your son! I am sure it was a Hallmark moment that you will always cherish.
My kids love to write too (ok, my son doesn’t love it, but he’s really good at it. haha) Every gift giving occasion when my kids asked what I wanted from them I would always say a story. Of course they would role their eyes, but what keepsakes!
My kids are both in college now and my daughter e-mails me her writing assignments to get another opinion. This summer she had an internship where she had to produce a creative writing piece. She was so excited about what she had written that she called to tell me to look at my e-mail right away. Then she stayed on the line as I read it.
Now that my kids are older when they ask what I want as gifts I probably should still say a story (however, now when they ask they also add, “and don’t say a story!” Anyways, now my answer is that I just want time with them.
Enjoy your family!
Thanks! I think I know what to ask for for Christmas from my kids this year:)