kiwords

I was reading here a story about a woman whose artistic ability was temporarily stunted by the cruelty of a teacher. It reminded me of an experience I had in fifth grade.
Before fifth grade I’d always vacillated between a few career ambitions. I would teach Special Ed, and probably be a forest ranger (I never claimed to be a cool kid). Oh, and I’d be a writer.
That was a given.
Well, one day in fifth grade I was writing a one-page essay in class. I don’t remember what it was about, but I was proud of it. I took it up to the teacher, Mr. Salazar, and happily dropped it on his desk. I was fairly full of myself, I like to imagine in a good way.
After recess Mr. Salazar handed back our essays, and on the top of mine was a big red “D”.
I was stunned.
There must be some mistake, I thought. I trotted my “D” right up to his desk and asked for an explanation. Well, I hadn’t used the margins properly, stopping an inch before the edge of the page. I’d written with characteristic haste and enthusiasm, slopping all over the page.
I got a “D” because of the margins.
I walked slowly back to my desk and asked the girl next to me if I could look at hers. It was an “A” paper. She had written about four sentences, slowly and carefully in her lovely balloon-round handwriting. She’d written “alot” instead of “a lot.”
I compared my paper to hers, and noticed for the first time how messy mine looked. I was shaken to realize that I didn’t know what people actually considered good writing. That it had less to do with the words and ideas I loved than it did with the tidiness of the margins.
I didn’t stop writing. How do you stop writing? I stopped showing what I wrote to people. I hid my notebooks full of earnestly felt words written in my messy, cramped hand. The papers I handed in were carefully crafted between the lines, literally and figuratively. “A” papers, for the most part. Fall-off-your-chair boring.
Only now, this year, have I admitted to being a writer.
And I’ll use my margins as I please.