Sunday Morning Story

Number 1

I wrote stories as a child.
I received an award in my first-grade writing class.
My picture was published in a small town newspaper with two other classmates.
My love for words was formed.

In fourth grade, I loved a girl and wrote a poem.
The principal read it during a school assembly in an auditorium of nine hundred K-8 kids because I was too embarrassed to read it myself. I stood awkwardly beside him. I was ten years old.
It was called “I miss” and went something like this:

i miss
your eyes 
i miss 
your smile
i miss 
the way you cheered me up
when i was in distress
i miss 
your long auburn hair 
that gently flew in the breeze
but most of all 
i miss you 
but what’s gone
i can’t bring back 
only the memory of you

The love of women became my first writer's muse.
I've added more, but I still write for you.
 
When I wrote this poem, Mrs. Forester was my fourth-grade teacher. She liked me and the popcorn cooked in butter I shared with her from my lunch sack.
Years later I would see her again in a small town coffee shop. 
I told her, "I've just returned from New York after hitchhiking the country."
We were in California. I was seventeen. 
She looked at me proudly, though, to this day, I'm convinced I saw a tinge of pride more for herself in correctly guessing the outcome of her former student. She confided, “I knew your life would be different.” 
And different it was.

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