The Speech I Never Dreamed Of Giving

12 years ago, I received an email, a simple inquiry: asking if I would come back? It was a long time, a great many years, since I'd last walked those school corridors. The very same ones where I first learned how to sign my name, where I sat cross-legged on the cold floor, carried away on stories, where I'd count off the minutes until recess, and sometimes, inexplicably enough, where I didn't want the bell to ring at all.

The note stated they wanted me to give a speech about writing with the students. Today, I write poems, publish books, cookbooks, even a mini novel, a true smattering of everything. It's the sort of writing that I never in a million years could have conceived of doing when I was there age. I fired back a "yes" pretty quickly, without overthinking it. But as the day rounded onto the calendar, memories began to seep in, then my head was flooded with them.

The day arrived and I parked my car in the huge parking lot; I simply sat there for a second. Watched kids pouring out of school buses, their backpacks as big as they were. The building itself was little different, but it looked smaller than I remembered it. It was not the giant, intimidating figure it had been looming over in my mind all these years. I pushed open the front doors, and my feet touched down on the familiar wood boards. The sound was just as it had always been. I froze for a second. It was not at all like returning to the past in any sense. It was like walking in for the first time.

The first person that I saw was Mrs. Thomas. Her smile rose up just to her eyes, as if no seconds ever had. She was my first-grade teacher, the first one ever to make me understand that what I had to say she wanted to hear. That same kindness still echoed in her face. With her was her daughter, Mrs. Wallin, who taught me later on. I hugged them both, and they hugged me a half beat longer than everybody else does, and that meant a lot to me.

They took me down the corridor to the auditorium. The hallway seemed to stretch on for eternity, longer than it probably was, with every step a touch of history. I passed by the room that I would be sitting in towards the back; I liked being able to view everything from there. I'd notice the way people would fidget with their hands while they talked, the way some of the children would gnaw on the ends of their pencils if they were nervous, the way I'd write poetry at my desk when I was supposed to be studying fractions.

I could hear the kids before we actually entered the auditorium. That loud, heightened sound children make when they know something's coming but aren't quite sure what it is. The moment the door opened, all that noise just… dropped. So many faces turned to look at me. Some of the teachers in the front rows were people I’d actually gone to school with, grown up now. Some of the older teachers were still here too, familiar faces from my own childhood. It was like stepping into a memory that had somehow kept on growing and changing without me.

I walked up to the microphone. My palms were steady, but my heart was pounding out a drum solo. It wasn't that I was scared, not really. Just that I was full to the brim with something I hadn't felt in a very long time. I looked out at rows of faces and saw miniature versions of myself sitting in the chairs. Kids who might walk home earlier and write a poem in a secret notebook. Kids who might feel that they don't have anything important to say. Kids who, maybe, already sensed that words might be their salvation.

I started by telling them that I was a poet/author, those words still don't feel real to me, who am I to consider myself anything other than just a writer? And how there was a time when I felt that nothing that I wanted to say mattered. I informed them I didn't start with fancy, high words. I had only observations, ideas, and feelings that had to get out. I read them some poems. They weren't masterpieces, shimmering and polished. Some were short. Some were about growing up in poverty. Some talked about being hungry. Some talked about being loved. I wasn't attempting to impress them. I was attempting only to be honest. Because many of those kids sitting there were living through what I did, and that appeared to be the key piece.

And then I mentioned Mrs. Ford the wonderful lunchroom lady who worked there when I went to school. She used to give me peanut butter sandwiches and oatmeal cookies packed in a bag every Friday. I would take that bag home with me very carefully, a precious package to share with my two sisters and brother. We never had enough food at home, and she never, ever made a hassle of it. She'd just give me the bag like no big deal, like it was totally normal. Those sandwiches kept us going the entire weekend more times than I can count. That kind of quiet generosity, it crawls into your heart and stays there.

I read them a small passage I'd written about her. About how those cookies had tasted sweeter because they'd been placed in my hand by her own. About how I hadn't known how to say "thank you" then, but how I knew certainly now. I wanted them to know that writing isn't being smart and making big sentences. Sometimes, it's just recalling the people who noticed you when you were too little or too confused to notice yourself.

When I finished reading, the room remained silent for a long, deep moment. And then a ripple started, and a very loud applause. The entire auditorium rose to its feet. All the chairs were cleared. Hands were clasped together, a firm, communal sound, as if it was something more than just appreciation of the poems or stories. Those kids connected with those poems, and it was like they were clapping for the homecoming, for the mere reason that I'd come back and brought memories with me, even part of our past together. I just stood there, with a teary eye, taking it all in. I didn't move or speak. I let the moment overwhelm me.

Later on, a small group of students made their way over to me. One asked me where I started writing. Another wanted to know if poems do have to rhyme. Another simply stated, "I enjoyed the cookies part." That made me smile, big and sincere. I told them that I started writing because I felt things rumbling inside of me that I didn't know how to sort out. I reassured them that poems just don't have to rhyme. And that sometimes, it's the smallest, most unnoticed things that people remember for the longest.

Once most of the children had resumed their classrooms, I lingered in the halls again, this time alone. I passed by the very corner where I leaned against the lockers when I was left behind on the bus going home. I peeked inside the cafeteria, where I remembered the loud laughter and the clandestine passing of snacks. I even poked my head in my former classroom. One of my teachers was scrawling something on the board, and the students were half-listening, half-daydreaming. Just about perfect.

I stepped out of there and hung around the front doors for a minute. The sun was pleasantly warm, quite a surprise for the day. It struck me how often I had gone through those doors as a kid, in my own little reality, and how now it was different. It was like the first time because I was watching it all again, but with another heart. With each and every experience I had suffered since then sitting right by me, guiding my eyes.

It truly didn't seem like merely coming back. It was like seeing the place for the first time, meeting it again, but now I possessed something to offer it.