Next week, my kids start kindergarten. Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What I remember about mine in that the teachers were on strike—that day and for six more weeks. There is a photograph of me, in a leotard, sitting with my father on the cement barrier that lined the lawn and curved around the flagpole. We are there supporting the teachers, I guess, there waiting for school to start.
I have been thinking about being a beginner. The kids are starting kindergarten, we’ve moved to a new town, and I am at the beginning of my next book project—and I have little idea of what it will be. In the next few weeks, I’ll return to looking at starting a project. And I’ll ask Angie, my super-handy, super-brilliant coach, to write some about it too—to give me some advice that might be useful for you, too, if and when you are next starting a book.
I will also write some about editing a book, because that’s what Angie is doing next, and a lot of other folks in the Book Writing World are editing your books, too.
But right now, let’s consider the challenges and benefits of being a beginner.
Do you remember the first time you fell in love with writing?
I remember sitting on the cement stoop outside my mother’s basement apartment, drawing letters in a huge demin-bound binder. I was perhaps three.
I remember reading a valedictory speech I’d written for sixth grade graduation at an audition to see who would speak that day, and having the teachers break into applause when I finished and ask if I would read it again.
I remember writing a play in high school, and the pleasure I took in the combination of calculation and creativity.
I remember being praised in a college workshop for my writing in words that echoed the ones I longed to hear for my acting in those days.
I remember wandering late into a writing circle in San Francisco, and hearing the last two writers in the group read aloud what they’d just written. Complete and vivid scenes, with dialog, characters and setting had poured out of them. When the next exercise began, I understood that this was what I had to do, and as the timer ticked, I created a scene. When the writers went around the circle to read, I discovered that the two I had heard were by far the very best, and that others had ranted and doodled. But I had reached beyond myself and done more than I’d known I could do, all because I was tardy and misunderstood the situation—and I will be forever grateful.
And of course, we all fell in love first with books, with reading, and perhaps before that with stories, with the lulling rhythms of language as we fell asleep, with song . . .
I invite you to make your own list of recollections: when was your love affair with writing at its height? Like any real relationship, romance has its place but is never the whole story. Writers gather and complain about writing the way spouses complain about each other. Perhaps we keep private the ecstasies, the intimacies, what we discover that we never knew, what stops our breath, what deepens it.
And then go back to the beginning. The first blush. Kindergarten. Let yourself be a beginner. Amateur means “one who loves.”
My kids’ kindergarten teacher said at a parent meeting last week, “When math is taught the right way, it’s their favorite subject.” But I can tell by what they’ve got planned—thematic learning stemming from real world explorations—that everything is going to be their favorite subject. The thrills of learning to read, using glue, discovering the habits of mammals in your region and of other kindergarteners in your classroom . . .
When my father was a professor at Yale, there was another professor who taught math, and this is what he would do: he would teach the entire course in the first half of the semester and then teach it again, beginning to end, in the second half of the semester.
What a marvelous pedagogy, really. Be a beginner and then be a beginner with a powerful foundation. You have this opportunity now—as do I. Be a beginner. What made you love writing? What kind of support did you have? What kind of community?
When I was twenty-one, I lived for a summer in a collective house in Vermont, and I would leave my stories in the bathroom, where inevitably everyone would, over the course of a few days, read them. A captive audience, if you will. My first publications.
Tell me your stories . . . When did you and writing fall in love? What dreamy meetings brought you together? What sustained the affair?
First day of Kindergarten:
I came across your website, having done a search for “first day of kindergarten.” I use this analogy quite often when I’m trying to describe an overwhelming and almost paralyzing sense of fear and abandonment. Yes, to this day I still use this analogy. I’m 46. It’s the one I use, because I was petrified when I learned moms don’t stay for the duration of the class during our youthful Kindergarten year. No one had given me THAT memo, and had they, I would have promptly written an in-depth addendum in response, making sure that everyone who was involved in the whole “first day of Kindergarten” process was clear on the matter that MOMS STAY. THE ENTIRE TIME. PERIOD. ALL MOMS. NO EXCEPTIONS.
But because the Kindergarten planning committee of all of the earth did not consult me the year I entered Kindergarten, it was not a good day. Not for me, not for my teacher, not for the other children, and certainly not for my scheming and conniving mother. (Actually, my mom’s the sweetest, kindest, most empathetic woman I know.) But that day, I didn’t even know WHO SHE WAS, with all her deception and debauchery. Trying to outwardly trick me like that. Not giving up the goods. Keeping me out of the loop. Not bringing me up to speed. I thought she was staying with? Turns out, that’s not how they roll in Kindergarten. Moms actually LEAVE their children there! They take their own flesh and blood, put them in a car, take them to a building and LEAVE THEM THERE. FOR LIKE, A LONG TIME! That’s premeditation! As in, they knew what they were doing before doing it, and they still did it! OMG. I thought someone had made a mistake, or at the very least, a major miscommunication occurred somewhere along the line. If I’d had any gumption, or any air in my lungs following my hour-long hysterical crying tantrum, I’d have certainly shown the higher-ups in Kindergarten planning that their system had one inherent flaw: Moms are supposed to stay. The whole time. In view. If a mom has to use the rest room, they should go and collect their respective child and take him or her with her, making sure that said child can at all times see Mom’s feet safely tucked underneath the bathroom door, with no fear that she’d try to ditch her kid and leave the building in a malicious quest to terrorize said kid for the remaining 45 minutes of the school day. On purpose and with premeditation!
I’m not a mom myself today, but I have friends who are. And from what I understand, this “rule” is still in practice and has not changed. Not even after the memo I’d typed up and delivered upon entering first grade, as I didn’t want to see any of my fellow children go through what I had on that first harrowing day of Kindergarten. Yet the rule is still in effect. I’ll give them another couple of years to get their processes together, but if I hear that things have not changed, I may write another strongly worded letter to someone, somewhere, who makes important decisions on these kinds of things. If we don’t owe it to anyone else, we owe it to the Kindergarten teachers. Not enough money in the world would make up for witnessing that kind of traumatic event over and over and over again. Groundhog Day ain’t for Kindergarteners.
First Time I Fell in Love with Writing:
I was in fourth grade. I wasn’t the most popular kid in elementary school. I had “buck teeth,” which made me self-conscious, on top of being shy to begin with. You’ve heard the drill…last picked for gym teams, ate lunch relatively alone, didn’t have many friends during recess so recess actually was a cause for anxiety for me, instead of a break from the monotony of class in the fourth grade. I was one of the typical shy kids who didn’t have lots of friends. (Thank God for braces and changing school districts. But that’s another story.)
I remember very distinctly the moment I fell in love with writing and words. In English class (or was it Spelling class in fourth grade?). I don’t know. At any rate, the drill was to raise our hand if we knew how to spell the words the teacher called out in class. The word was “vegetable.” You know that word. They try to trick us with that silent “e” – but I knew instinctively how to spell it. No question. I knew I knew, and I knew by the lack of hands in the air that no one else did. And that kind of certainty was really awesome for the shy kid with the buck teeth and no friends. I never raised my hand for anything. But it was like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as we all sat there waiting for someone to say something. “Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?” No one raised their hand. Finally, out of sheer effort to just move on, I raised my hand, teacher called on me, I stood up and spelled the word. Correctly. And Jeff P, the most popular kid in the class, busted out laughing at my expense so loudly that I was certain the classrooms three doors down all heard him. But I didn’t get embarrassed. I didn’t want to sink into my seat and bury my head. I knew I was right. I had confidence in that moment, and at that point in my young life, after the whole Kindergarten incident and all, I had few moments of confidence. I stood, unwavering in reaction to Jeff’s boisterous laughter at my expense, and my teacher said (to Jeff directly), “She’s right! I don’t know what you’re laughing at, Mr. P., because she’s right.” She was proud of me. I could see it. And I was proud of me. I could feel it. From that moment on, writing and I have been going steady. An item. It’s been one of my most faithful and sturdy relationships in my 46 years. I’m planning on staying with writing forever, because I believe it’s a precious gift from God. One that won’t let me down.