When I was in high school I had the same English teacher for all four years. Luckily he was an incredible educator who opened so many horizons for me that it would be impossible to fully explain his influence on the trajectory of my life. I think of him often because he changed me from a little girl whose reading habits only included Nancy Drew mysteries and stories of pioneer families. He nurtured my creative bent and introduced me to a wider world than I had ever imagined. 

One of the weekly tasks that he gave us was to write a short theme based on a word or phrase that he posted on the blackboard each Monday morning. I would have seven days to complete the assignment but more often than not waited until Sunday evening to put together two hundred words that felt coherent enough to submit. Most of the time my offerings were rather dull but now and again I would feel the fire of creativity that produced an opus worth reading. 

Back then writing was a chore, something that had to be completed before the deadline. There were times when I sat staring at a blank piece of paper panicking that my lack of originality would finally cause my downfall. Sometimes I ended up writing something so banal that even I would have given myself a disgusting grade. Luckily my teacher was a bit more gracious in using those themes mostly to help us become more and more comfortable about writing. He wanted us to improve, not become instant geniuses of the pen. 

Much of the terror that I felt about writing involved having to use a typewriter to do so. My mother had insisted that I learn how to touch type before I even entered high school. She saw that skill as an important bridge to completing the assignments of higher learning. I happily learned how to tap the keys with all ten of my fingers without looking down to note whether or not I was actually performing well or creating a page full of mistakes. 

When there was no pressure I performed well on a typewriter but somehow creating text that would be assessed by someone other than myself sent my fingers to all the wrong letters. It would take me hours to complete a coherent document. Even then my work would be dotted with so much white out that it looked as though something had leaked on the page. The art of writing became a task fraught with terror as I tried mostly without success to quickly post my ideas on a blank sheet of paper. 

There is an irony that I now write every single day as a kind of relaxing meditation. The beauty of being able to correct mistakes that I make on my laptop with ease has freed me to concentrate more on my words and ideas than on the mechanics of creating a manuscript. I have reached a point in my life when writing is fun and I imagine my English teacher providing me with a daily prompt that will challenge my creativity rather than my ability to create a readable document.

Words and ideas and grammar all come together in a coherent unity when I write all because of the English teacher who showed me the power of reading and crafting ideas with words. Because of him my home is overflowing with beautifully bound volumes and magazines. Thanks to the internet I am able to find even more to read and I widen my horizons even more than my teacher showed me how to do. When I went to college my professors wanted to know who had mentored me so well. I was proud to tell the stories of time in his class listening to poetry and plays and words put together so beautifully that they drew pictures on my heart. 

I often wonder if I would find so much joy in writing each day if I had never met my wonderful English teacher. I ask myself how I was so fortunate to encounter such a person during my becoming years. His vision of a world without limits fit so well with the early love of reading and learning that I received from my father. Somehow the influence of those two men became the foundation of the person that I would ultimately become. 

Some people take walks or go to a gym each day to insure their physical and mental health. I write for the same reasons. It may be a vanity project but it is also a way to be myself. I am not a quick thinker. I have to ponder ideas before speaking of them. Writing allows me to give voice to the many thoughts that race through my head. It calms my soul and provides me with a kind of superpower that my dear grandmother Minnie Bell so longed to have. In only two generations I have progressed from ancestral women unable to either read or write to holding a graduate degree. My father and my English teacher accelerated my sense of power over who I am by showing me how to use stories and poems and editorials to form my own beliefs and then speak of them to others. Theirs has been a gift that I cherish each time I sit in my recliner with my laptop balanced on my legs. The whole world comes to me in those moments.