When I tell people I am a writer, some people ask me if writing was always a dream of mine. “No,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I believe I must have been struck by lightning one night while I was sleeping, because the next morning when I woke up, I decided to write a book.”
For me, writing was something I never considered. It was one of the furthest things from my mind, something which I could not have imagined myself doing, not seriously. Although to be perfectly honest, that’s not exactly so. I do remember, once upon a time, telling an instructor of mine I wanted to be an author. I don’t, however, believe I could be held to account for what I said. My statement was made at a time of heightened duress.
You see, I had been assigned a project. The project involved an occupational decision which needed to be decided upon quickly and then presented in front of a live audience complete with illustrated drawings. Both portions of the assignment were very difficult for me as I did not have the faintest idea of my career path, nor could I draw.
We had been told by our instructor to draw ourselves at a point in the future, doing whatever it was we imagined ourselves involved in our occupation.
I was in the second grade at the time, a time when drawing even well-formed stickmen was a challenge for me, and sadly to say, a challenge which has remained an ongoing deficiency of mine.
Now, if I had chosen a career as a doctor, a firefighter, a police officer, pilot, teacher, football player, those occupations could have been drawn by me—poorly drawn, but drawn, nonetheless. But how, I wondered exactly, was a poet to be drawn, and not just any poet, me, as a poet? I certainly didn’t look like a poet. I didn’t even have a beard.
Time was passing and now I had procrastinated to the point where I had come to the last minute of decision making still without knowing what I wanted to say to either the class or to my teacher, Ms. Lewis.
The decision to be made was not being taken lightly. I believed my career choice was to be a truthful, lifelong commitment.
At last, not wanting to lie, but having no time to wait, I chose to say I wanted to be a poet. A poet…?
The idea of poetry was not original. It was inspired by an earlier project assigned us by Ms. Lewis (Ms. Lewis was big on projects.) for which we had been told to choose any poem we wished and then to draw a picture illustrating it. I remember I had help from my mother both with the choice of my poem and the illustration.
The poem I chose was If by Rudyard Kipling. Its rhythmical beat and wording had an effect on me, sufficiently such that when pressed for my career decision, I announced then, there, and forevermore writing was to be my future.
That career declaration of, oh those many years ago, now feels as if it has been commuted, not to be a fabrication after all; although, it did take a very long time in its coming. As to extent of my writing and its quality— time and you will need to be the judge of that— thankfully though, without need of any of my hand-drawn illustrations.