I Writer [mark]

“Write, write, write, write!” they chanted outside the window by my desk. Twenty jr. high kids stood on the other side of the fence around the school yard. Some pumped their fists in the air with every word while others sat down picking grass where they were. This is not another weird dream I had-- this actually happened. This is what happens when bored teenagers congregate on their lunch break; this is what happens when you tell bored teenagers what you do. They cheer you on.

Just a few moments ago there were three of them, then eight. That is when I opened the door to talk to them.

“Hey window guy, what are you doing?” the short one with headphones the size of his head draped around his neck yelled.

“Writing,” I said as I realized that I was still wearing my Homer Simpson pajamas.

“Like books?”

“Yeah.”

“Can we be in it?”

“Uh… maybe.”

After a few more minutes of small talk I closed the door and returned to my page. What seemed like seconds later I looked up and there were twenty. They had been running around the playground desperately trying to enlist every spare body they could find to cheer me on. The moment they saw me look at them they began to chant, “write, write, write, write!” They yelled each word with the greatest glee any one person could muster. “You’re my hero Writer-guy! I want to be just like you!” One of them tried to feed me grass through the fence to entice me into opening the door again.

I like having children playing outside the window where I write. It reminds me that I don't have everything figured out just yet and, perhaps they do. Every day an elementary school girl comes to the fence by my window and picks grass. I imagine her sitting at the dinner table at home telling her parents how wonderful school is. They think she likes the kids or the teachers but she is thinking about the grass. The nice, soft, green grass out by the fence that she longs to sit in and enjoy the satisfying plink as each blade gives up its grip on the ground. then she throws it into the air and watches it float down to the ground carried by the wind. In two or three years she will learn that this isn't fun, she will then spend the rest of her life trying to find what is fun.

What self-respecting adult would stand on the other side of a fence and cheer on a total stranger doing something so innocuous as putting words on a page? But that is what kids do; that is what makes them kids. I saw a few of them several days later and told them that I am about to get married. They promised to give me a proper countdown and on my wedding day they would put a poster on our back door.

One day I will have children of my own and I only hope that I can teach them as much about life, joy and fun as they will teach me.