Feeling: nostalgic
Listening to: Jeff Buckley - "I Woke Up in a Strange Place"
Reading/Watching: Missing at M.I.S. and Don't Call Me Irwin... god, I feel old.

I just got word that my fifth-grade teacher retired yesterday.

It's an odd feeling, because she and my 11th-grade English teacher were the two people I visited most in *Hometown. There was always such a comforting feeling, knowing they'd be there and I could show up and say hello and still feel important because you can't mature from age 10 to age 20 without looking like a rock star in their eyes.

Because I knew they'd be there, I didn't visit nearly as often as I should have. And it's sad.

Mrs. Williams was the first person to tell me that I could actually be a writer, rather than just hopelessly scribble in notebooks and hide them from people. She encouraged me to write and illustrate a story that (I think) she still has on display in the reading corner of her classroom. She was the reason I got serious about writing Alecin and finished it in sixth grade (and heavenly God, what a horrible book it was, but I finished it).

Once in twelfth grade, when I was interviewed for winning a writing award, I said that my writing began when I was ten years old, and matured when I was sixteen. Mrs. Williams told me I had wings, and my highschool english teachers taught me to fly.

When I next visited Mrs. Williams, she had the article hung and laminated on her corkboard. Thinking about it now makes me want to cry. She really did change my life, as much as one's life can be changed in fifth grade, anyway.

I'm sorry I never did get anything published, Mrs. Williams. You read two of my novels, and loved them both, and I promised I'd send them off and keep trying until they were on bookshelves. Didn't realize how hard the publishers' rejection would hit me.

Excuse me; I think I'm going to go do some editing now.

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