I Know the Letters Are There: The Inner Rumblings of a Writer

I remembered writing this piece as my mind-heart-spirit took a few deep breaths into the #7MagicWords challenge from Marisa Goudy : I wrote the original poetic essay in 2003. In reviewing Marisa’s prompt now I realize I got it… wrong. Yet it is entirely right.

I’m joining the challenge three days late. On the first day we were to uncover a word that integrates and on day two a word that earths. Mine… integrates. Definitely. I’m sticking with it: LETTERS.

I just completed a modest rewrite on this essay. It is ripe with letters. I took a joyful classroom memory that integrates my childhood with my now – my passion ever present, continuing.

Here I am, the 7th grade me as seen by the early forties me.

Did a hush fill the dark room as a storm gathered outside or was it in my imagination? I can’t remember exactly.

In the back of the room my fingers dashed steadily across the keyboard, pounding away at the manual typewriter as it spoke clankety clankety clankety ding!

A woosh replaced the clanks as I swiped the typewriter carriage with all the zest of the former girl’s arm wrestling champion from Linden Avenue School, now graduated to the Middle School that sat proudly on top of a circular driveway. The yellow brick walls were sunny with optimism despite the rain drops increased force against the windows providing a counterpoint rhythm to my typing.

Did the ceiling evaporate and a ray of light suddenly connect my hands to heaven?

Something had shifted. It had broken through the physical plane and into my thirteen-year-old being. I had the skill to type without looking at the keyboard thanks to the Tap Tapnick poster on the wall and hours and hours of diligent practice so I was able to scribe the words without looking at my hands. I could close my eyes or stare straight ahead or above the chalk board and continue typing.

I knew the letters were there.

There was never any question.
There were other children in the room tapping away at their machines. I know there was other activity. I remember Mr. Seymour, my English teacher, walking into the room to visit with Mrs. Behrman, the
typing teacher. Right in the midst of the bustle and the buzz of thirty or so typewriters all clanking and dinging and swiping, I was not there at all and I knew the letters were there.

All I had to do was connect my mind, soul and heart to my fingers and words burst forth from knitting the letters together, stitching them into a patchwork of meaning. I was able to translate all the emotion that was rumbling through my early adolescent self onto the page so that the world of the Glen Ridge Middle School and beyond would be able to understand what it felt like to feel so incredibly alive, so
incredibly buoyant.

From reading my words I knew they would be able to understand what it meant to tap into the power of God while writing.

The Topic was simply “Music”. The composer was for the first time a life force greater than my own.

I had tapped into the Zone, the Flow, the Space in the Center where everything is conceived, birthed and buried.

I knew the letters were there. And so was I. And all was well, even if no one ever read those words pumping out of me, the letters were in front of me, within me, surrounding me.

All was well and would be well. I knew the letters were there.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!