This Writing Thing

The keys have been clicking away in my classroom the past few weeks as the quarter closes in and students are vigorously polishing up their final writing pieces. They don't know what that clicking and clacking sound does to my heart. It beating anxiously. A true test of my patience to wait for their work to be done. Will they choose to become author's one day, will they dive into their own personal writing, maybe try their hand at the upkeep of a personal blog, or will they squander deep in research and publish academic journals for a multitude of learners. Sigh. When I feel their excitement pulsing through the room my heart skips a few beats. 

Their energy is nudging me to sit down and orchestrate my own piece. I find my writer's mind standing on a mountain top, the wind tossing my hair around, and I peer out over the valley, a microscopic river below me. I want to jump. Jump off my mountain top into a piece so intentionally crafted. I want to soar from the top, through the wind, all the way to the river. But every time I lean out over the edge. My heart races. I lift a foot. Lean further over. But something is holding me back. Preventing my heart from doing what it loves and longs for. 

These days every moment is not long enough. Any opportunity for peacefulness is exterminated by the questions, the have you's and could you's, and anything else waiting for a response. If only the mind could pause time, and run away with the heart to the mountain tops, escaping the duties set before them. They could produce something so beautiful. If only a moment could satisfy. 

If these moments they write could bring their heart a slice of the joy it brings to mine, then we are producing something beautiful. I pray that these minds before me can find the joy that writing can bring, the peace that might save their soul, or the influence that their words can generate. They are the future after all. What a future we have before us!