I believe that I was first seduced by the power of
language when I was about four years old. I remember distinctly
that my Mother had a way of caressing her words so that the most
mundane sentence or thought seemed enticing. My Mother never
said, get the milk out of the milk box. She would invariably
shape her words in such a manner that the most menial task became
a literary delight with a promise of richness or excitement. I
would be told to scoop up the milk so that we could combine it
with ice cold berries and make yummy muffins or something equally
enticing to a child. Thus began my love affair with the power of
words.
I quickly moved on to realizing that these same
lovely words could be read and digested by some wonderful mystery
called phonics. I would sit hour after hour on the sofa
deciphering the magic in these early books. I was enthralled
that letters put together could form words, words put together
could form phrases, phrases put together sentences and ultimately
sentences put together could form full bodied thoughts. I
marveled that the written word would enable me to tell my own
stories, spin my own tales, weave my own tapestries and share my
inner thoughts.
I was privileged to attend a parochial school were
language was viewed as both an essential art of conversation and
a wonderful vehicle of expression for the written word. Odd as
it may sound, in a classroom packed with students, diagram day
was one of our favorites. We learned the intricacies of dangling
participles, gerunds, split infinitives and all the rest under a
festive canopy of competition, prizes, teams and just plain fun.
Diagram day, reserved for an afternoon, was a time when everyone
participated, anticipation was high, excitement was in the air
and everyone went home feeling like a winner. Why I wonder?
Could it be that our simple teachers understood that the gateway
to communicating well lay in the most basic understanding of the
rules of sentence structure and good grammar?
Could it be that we were taught early that
communication is an art to enjoy and that well formed thoughts
were a joy to share? Could it be that we were rewarded by
speaking and writing in a clear concise style? Could it be that
we felt a sense of accomplishment about answering, who, what,
where, why and when and doing it effectively? Were we taught
that a little thought and perseverance would result in a blank
page mysteriously filling up and transforming into a gateway to
wherever we wished to go? Were we taught that descriptors such
as adverbs and adjectives are lovely, they set a tone, and that
with a few well placed words, context and a decent vocabulary we
could take ourselves and our readers to places of deep
imagination?
I often wonder if the seduction of the power of
words that occurred in my youth was the result of my good
fortune of being placed with people who cared about the beauty
that is possible in language and the written word and realized,
perhaps presciently, that we were about to enter the era of
slang, shortcuts, abbreviated niceties and an erosion of time.
Surely, in our very compressed current time frame there is less
emphasis on painting pretty verbal and written pictures. But,
should there be or are we losing an essential part of our
culture? We still need to enthrall one another, don’t we? We
still need to explain serious topics in ways that create an
interest for our readers.
I remember my Mother walking through fields and
valleys in upper New York State weaving fairy tales about
abandoned barns, lean cattle and rusty farm equipment. I was
enraptured by her stories as a child and didn’t realize until I
was older that her stories were mere fictions, just pure delights
with wonderfully imaginative and stirring words. Her varied
words, lilts and tinkles, along with her fluent use of language
enticed me. I could imagine every single intricacy of the tale
she told. I would mourn for the farmer, or delight in the
daughter’s success, or worry over the lack of money from the
corn. All tales, all tall, all told with a reverence and an
amazing capacity to choose just the right words to keep the story
alive.
As a writer, I am never far from these early
years. I expect my words to come alive, to jump off the page, to
enliven, to stir imaginations, and to seduce. I cannot imagine
telling my story without caressing the words. I imagine the
reader watching, reading, wondering what the next salient word,
phrase or sentence will be that will carry him or her on to the
next paragraph, the next page, the answer to the puzzle that lies
ahead.
To write is to love to write. To communicate is
to love to communicate. To do it well is to be in love with
language, the rules of composition, the nuances of sharing one’s
story as if one is a story teller, and to be able to pretend that
one is one’s own reader. To write is to create a montage of
thought that somehow coalesces into a cogent, concrete, message
that takes the reader to a vivid place of imagination or delivers
some very important information.
I believe that all writers approach the task
differently. I believe that some writers have inherent gifts
that allow them to create works of such magnitude that it takes
our collective breaths away. I believe that more writers write
from love and a passion to share the beauty of our most intimate
form of communication. I believe that we are all writers, in the
end, some of us have just not yet awakened to our potential.
Writing is a opportunity to capture someone else’s
heart with your very own cherished words. Writing is therefore,
powerful, yet subtle, interesting yet sublime. It is one of the
wonders that has intrigued us since ancient times and as it has
clearly stood the test of time, it is no doubt, on some small
scale, one of the wonders of our world.
Good luck with the endeavor. Remember the
wellspring that lies within us all.
