A Way with Words
An Introduction: Meeting Language for the First Time
In the very beginning, there were only pictures. Picture books and my parents’
imaginations relayed fantastically vivid stories full of suspense, wonder, and enchantment. But
as my mom read to me at night she would sometimes trace along these so-called ‘words’ at the
bottom of the page, so as not to lose her place. As far as I knew, these words were not adding
much to the story, but rather were nonsensical distractions taking up space where more pictures
should have resided if I had gotten my way. How was I to know that one day those words would
open up new worlds to me, even without the seemingly important pictures by their sides? I was
only a preschooler at the time.
So I remained content hearing these fabulous tales told by my parents, grandparents,
older sister and brother. Mother Goose nursery rhymes imparted some important lessons in
verse. Little Golden Books let me know about little engines that could, about the life of a certain
little red hen, and warned of the tumultuous relations between three pigs and one menacing wolf.
Beautiful and yet frightening fairy tales filled my head and occupied my dreaming life. It was all
hearing second-hand at this point. I had no idea those letters at the bottom of the page were
responsible for the haunting, rhyming, magical sounds and images received and conjured up in
my little mind.
With the passage of time and the entrance into Horace Mann Elementary School came the
learning of the alphabet and the dawn of handwriting. Manila paper with hot pink and
aquamarine blue lines helped to keep our print within the proper lines and dimensions. An
obsession with fun pencils and erasers evolved among the girls in the class. And as we began to
put the letters together into words in reading and writing, we were still being read to by our
primary teachers. After lunch and recess, our teacher would read to us for twenty minutes or so.
That daily exercise was hypnotic and mesmerizing in nature, not just the words and images, but
also the turning of the pages and the rise and fall of the teacher’s intonations. Judy Blume and
Beverly Cleary were favorite authors. Who could object to a deliciously sounding book titled
SuperFudge? Conversely, Freckle Juice sounded intriguingly distasteful. And Tales of a Fourth
Grade Nothing offered much more than it promised. Thirty minutes of library time each week
was never enough, when we would all pick out books and sit silently at our own individually
chosen reading spots among the floor-to-ceiling book-lined shelves. At home, I would read
adventures of The Boxcar Children while being enveloped (and threatened with complete
engulfment) by my cotton-candy pink bean bag chair.
In the Middle with Meddlesome Language
Moving into middle school, our elementary knowledge of language was about to be
dissected and diagrammed and the secrets of literary devices revealed. I was fortunate to have
had a Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, who remained enthusiastic in sharing her love of
literature and unfailingly brought the written word to life over and over again in a myriad of
ways. Language was becoming playful and clever, complex and satisfying, both in the mind and
off the tongue. The Shakespeare plays rife with wordplay and iambic pentameter, the creepy
stories of Edgar Allen Poe, the ironic poem “Ozymandias” by Shelley, are but a few memories
that come to mind from that period of literacy development. In our writing at this time, we were
to put into practice these literary devices of rhyme, foreshadowing, irony, character development,
tragedy, comedy and the like. I distinctly remember penning a real-life derived story entitled
“Tooth Loss Tragedy” which curiously managed to invite a few accolades for its use of literary
tricks of the trade. We were just beginning to try these on for size to see how they fit and what
their impact was on the reader. Could we also write in a way similar to what we read? That was
the question we were beginning to answer in middle school.
High School: Becoming and Emergence
Then came high school and we acted like we already had all the answers. But we didn’t
really. We had more questions than ever. We were busy questioning who we were, forging an
identity, relating and romancing. Who were we in relation to others? If any learning was to take
place, it had better speak directly to us and help us in this endeavor. We were thick in the plot of
developing our own characters. What are the common themes of life? When do we get to the
good stuff? How do we want our own story to develop? The not-so-distant reality of
independence and responsibility was steadily approaching during these years.
Miraculously, during this self-absorbed period, I managed to gain a solid foundation in
reading and writing. During my junior year, I elected to take a class called American Studies.
This course offered a comprehensive approach to learning history, literature/poetry, and art. We
moved through the periods of American civilization and evaluated how the thoughts and
philosophies, historical events, science, literature, and art influenced and reflected every other
element. Because of this class and the immense work and critical thinking required, I formed a
wealth of associations in my mind. So much reading, countless hours of note-taking and
summarizing, innumerable late nights writing papers. This was the best model and practice of
how to think, how to read, and how to write, that I have ever encountered throughout my
educational history. Integrated, interdependent, reflective thinking combined with rigorous
expectations prepared me for the liberal arts college experience that was just around the bend.
A course in British Literature introduced me to the epic Beowulf and reacquainted me
with Shakespeare. The World Literature elective had me cultivating an appreciation for global,
universal themes by way of reading The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. The required English class
rounded out my literary experience with To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes
of Wrath, and The Red Badge of Courage. I was emboldened by the support of great teachers
and my parents. Their respect for literacy was contagious and I happened to have caught the bug
as a meaningful result of this and a lot of hard work. I was ready to emerge onto the campus of
the University of Iowa with a little of this fledgling confidence in tow.
College and Convergence
So off I went and to this day carry a suitcase full of nostalgia for my college years. Those
were rich times, teeming with good characters, humor, gravity, and let’s not forget, drama. One
such character that I chanced to meet was my requisite Rhetoric course instructor, Sally Shafto.
She was bespectacled in horn-rimmed glasses, had a penchant for leopard prints and heels, and
possessed a style all her own. Her presence made all of us wonder just where on this planet she
had come from. She was completely and endearingly out of touch with popular culture, having
been immersed within academia while working toward her MFA in French and Foreign Cinema.
But she knew language. And she made that class, by turns, an interesting invitation to the crafts
of reading, writing, and speaking. In the first week of class, she read my first writing assignment
aloud which was simultaneously mortifying and empowering. I can remember it now, a personal
story poorly titled, “My Life in a Nutshell”. That title alone makes me both cringe and laugh. I
had a long ways to go with my writing but her selection and rendering of my story offered the
promise of a good beginning. Though my core classes were within psychology and science, I
always dangled a line in English and literature classes by way of electives. Modern Fiction
confronted me with James Joyce and his behemoth Ulysses and marched me through Ford
Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier. Transcendentalists and Their Works had me wandering
through Thoreau’s Walden, Emerson’s Nature, and Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes, in
1843.
Many nights I would frequent a local shop, Prairie Lights Bookstore, to take a seat at the
café and study. This bookstore was also a popular venue for famous authors to stop during their
book tours and I was fortunate to hear many of their readings. In addition, Iowa City was home
to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a highly esteemed enclave for aspiring, creative writers and
poets to fine tune their craft. For these reasons, the atmosphere was dense with literary
engagements and accomplished, literate personalities.
Besides the literature classes and readings I attended, I was doing a lot of reading and
writing within all disciplines: philosophy, anatomy, physiology, biology, chemistry, psychology,
religion, Spanish, and so on. All of those introductory courses in the humanities and sciences
gave me a starting point for future explorations into any conceivable subject matter. I was
coming to learn the languages and associations among all the disciplines. This is the beauty and
gift that a true liberal arts education can bestow:
A truly great intellect . . . is one which takes a connected view of old and new, past and
present, far and near, and which has an insight into the influence of all these one on
another; without which there is no whole, and no centre.—John Henry Newman, The
Idea of a University
Despite my bank account hovering at a precariously low balance while in school, my
mind was accumulating a wealth of redeeming assets all the while. And I have to continue
believing that my financial aid lender got the short end of the stick, at least on the one day each
month my account is debited in honor of our exchange. I do know, joking aside, that I came out
on top. Through earning my diploma at the university, I was also symbolically being handed the
keys to the castle.
Freedom and The Laws of Habit
The keys that literacy provides will open doors and knock down walls. The world
becomes more manageable and opens up in limitless ways. Literacy grants freedom,
independence, liberty, and access. As Aristotle quoted, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be
able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” This is what literacy enables us to do: to
consider multiple perspectives, to develop empathy, to weigh options, to draw conclusions, to
imagine possibilities, to think independently. Even Peter, the protagonist in Tales of a Fourth
Grade Nothing, relates: “Nobody can stop me from thinking. My mind is my own.” When we
know how to read and write and speak proficiently, we do own our own minds. This is the most
priceless freedom imaginable; a freedom which we must preserve for ourselves and bestow onto
others.
How do we prepare for and exercise this freedom? By forming and modeling good
habits. William James, in the chapter “The Laws of Habit” within Talks to Teachers on
Psychology, eloquently expounds:
All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,—practical, emotional,
and intellectual,—systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us
irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be...We forget that every good
that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and
postpone, until those smiling possibilities are dead. Whereas ten minutes a day of poetry,
of spiritual reading or meditation, and an hour or two a week at music, pictures, or
philosophy, provided we began now and suffered no remission, would infallibly give us
in due time the fulness of all we desire. By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by
sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher
possibilities…According as a function receives daily exercise or not, the man becomes a
different kind of being in later life…Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little
gratuitous exercise every day.
To make a conscious effort to incorporate reading and writing into your day is a practice yielding
both concrete and invisible, undefinable rewards. I try to read at least ten minutes a day for my
own pleasure, dipping into the stack of books on my bedside table or perusing the pages of a
literary journal named The Sun. Last summer alone, I read books on a variety of topics, ranging
from the life of a cowboy, responsible agriculture, the evolution of The Nature Conservancy, to
the politics guiding the management of the Missouri River. My interests do span across just
about everything under the sun, indeed. These strokes of daily effort, as James would say, have
fueled a desire to know more and recently has led to a possibility I had never considered. My
own creative spark has been ignited and is coming to have a life all of its own.
Wielding Words and Afterthoughts
Strangely, after all the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve taken in over the years, I’m
finding I am now compelled to write some of my own stories. Words are now becoming
available for me to use in my own novel way. Years of required reading and racing to meet
paper deadlines have led me to this point. I, undoubtedly, enjoyed the books and appreciated the
finished products of my converging thoughts and writing along the way. But it was work
nonetheless and all the same. I never would have imagined that writing could be more fun than
work, something I felt I had to and wanted to do in my free time. And so here I begin again, at
another interesting point in the journey.
What makes for a good journey after all? Thinking back, I was the fortunate beneficiary
of an amalgam of influences. My parents’ appreciation of literacy, the Siouxland Library
membership, the living room bookshelves bursting with books, the teachers who did not let me
admit defeat in the face of puzzling words and reading assignments, the professors who poured
over my writings and gently and encouragingly raised me to new levels. And like I mentioned
before, it was work, plain and simple, a lot of the time. But all of those predecessors and
mentors, knowing what they did, believing in the power of language, made the investment of
time and thought well worth the sacrifices and effort. For that, I am eternally grateful. So I end
as I began, with respect and gratitude for literacy.
If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good
writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight
and kiss and perform miracles.—Gertrude Stein