Pretty Words

I remember being in high school and experiencing real poetry for the first time. I had an incredible writing teacher, Mrs. McGraw, who inspired me to think about words in ways that I never had before. She was awesome. During the first week of every school year, she painted the walls in her classroom white and brought paints in all the colors of the rainbow with her for our lesson. Her task - to have all of the students put their handprints on the walls of the room thus leaving their mark.

That year I read what would be my life-long favorite book - A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. For close to a month, we lived that book in class and when we finished we held a memorial service for Owen in the courtyard of our school. We had all written obituaries for him and read them aloud.

That year I fell in love with words...poetry, short stories, novels, quotes. To this day, I credit Mrs. McGraw with inspiring this in me and for giving me the guidance and constructive criticism that I needed to help me feel confident in my ability to express myself with pretty words.

There are certain pieces of poems that have stayed with me since that time and this one crossed my mind today...very fitting for my sis and some things she is going through. It's great how we can take poems, quotes, etc and make them fit our lives, isn't it? Anyway...this is one of my all time favorites...

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind... -William Wordsworth