Diana

Katie D.

January 31, 2009 - 11:20 AM

I was recently asked to reflect on a person who has had a large influence in my life. This is a common question in elementary writing courses, language classes, and self-improvement courses. My answer to the question has been the same since fifth grade. The most important people in my life certainly include my family and friends, but there is one person in particular who I always name as the most critical in my formative years. Diana was my teacher from 5th through 8th grades, and later was a writing mentor and is now a good friend. She helped me discover my love for writing. Her love for her students, and her genuine enthusiasm for our opinions and insights in literature and our own attempts at creative writing meant that I found my voice at a young age and have never since doubted that my words and ideas are worthy, and that I should express them without shame or self-censorship. She helped me discover the talents and interests that already existed in me, but seemed, at that stage, to possibly be silly or immature. I had already developed the common feeling that my best efforts might not be good enough, or that my ideas and art might bring down ridicule and misunderstanding.

Diana taught us to play with words. She took a group of middle school students and taught us to look at literature as more than just a series of comprehension questions, but as works of art full of beauty and potential. I remember when she showed us the Robin Williams film Dead Poets Society, and thinking that that was exactly what she had given us as her students: a passion for the poetry of things, the ability to live deeply and suck the marrow out of life, as Thoreau invites us to do. The beauty of a well-told story lies not just in the quality of the story on the surface, but in the innumerable implications that story has for our broader lives.

I was a reader basically from birth. I can remember my mom reading to me from a very early age, reading me children's books, then books like Call of the Wild (which she hated and I loved), and Lord of the Rings. She read to me until I was in middle school, and that ritual of reading before bedtime is something I've continued even in the midst of exams and homework and travels. Three years in a row I read more than 100 books per year. Some of the most important influences on my life have been authors and characters. Their status as fictional beings does not in any way lessen their centrality in my life.

Diana gave me something very important in relation to this love of literature. She helped me learn to understand it, to see it beyond the surface story. But she also helped me understand that authors are just people, imagining stories and writing them down. And so, for the first time in my life I envisioned myself as more than a reader: I had the idea that I could someday become a writer. After all that books have meant to me in my lifetime, I might become that sort of influence in other people's lives. That idea has stuck with me since fifth grade, and is an ultimate goal in my life. To be an author is to have influence far beyond the relationships of a single life. It is, in one sense, to be immortal.

Diana made us middle school students write poetry. But she made it happen gently. She brought in poetry that was accessible to us, and taught us to play with language. We did word games and conversation poetry. We had one class where she read a poem from each of the ten members of the class and we had to guess which classmate had written which poem. We learned voice and style and the playfulness of poetry. We also learned to value the trust that grew between us, and I have always felt most comfortable with my writing when I have people I can dialogue with: share writing, ideas, and the inevitable disappointments that come with writing creatively.

I am so very grateful that Diana was my teacher during this time, because I had another English class in sixth grade that could have squashed any artistic impulses if I had had that teacher alone. I remember very clearly writing the assigned poem about a color and what that color meant to me. I was excited, happy to be writing for a different teacher and confident I could do a good job. I wrote about blue, because my room has always been blue themed. I have blue eyes and what I imagine to be a blue identity: both sea and sky, both peace and joy. So I wrote about blue in that capacity. I received a B for that poem, with a single comment: "blue is a sad color. It cannot mean these happy things."

Now, I'm sure that teacher was rushed or grumpy or simply not imagining that her comment could shake me up like it did. But I was offended and hurt by that simple denial of my creative attempts. And, because I'd had Diana teaching me for two years, I realized for myself that that teacher was wrong. It's a poetic world out there, and I learned the reality of creative license and the pain of misunderstanding and criticism all in that one moment.

I stayed close to Diana throughout middle school. In high school we formed a writer's group with another friend of mine, when we would get together and write together, and share poetry we'd written or other poets we loved. Diana introduced me to Walt Whitman, Billy Collins, and Mary Oliver. Mary Oliver is my favorite poet, and has been for years. I memorized the first of her poems that Diana brought us as writing prompts. In fact, I have "Wild Geese" memorized in both English and a self-translation into Spanish.

Now that I have grown up and moved on to college I see Diana very rarely. I try to get together with her when I'm home in Colorado, visiting her at the high school where she works now, or going to dinner with her and my mom. I see her now, working with high schoolers the way she worked with me and my friends through middle school. She pours everything into her students, encouraging them to write responses to the assigned readings that she in turn takes time to respond to with depth and consideration. She encourages their writing and shares her own. And she allows the students to be who they are, somehow creating a safe place for art and ideas amid the chaos and discomfort of teenaged years. She was recently diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer, which was a terrifying experience for me, imagining my friend and mentor in fear and pain. But she is recovering and has found new meaning and self-confidence after that experience. She's working on a book now, which I cannot wait to see. She lives with such passion and depth, which has served as a continuous inspiration for me in my life.

Diana taught me to write, but, more importantly, she gave me a self-confidence I have never lost, and one that I still attribute back to her. Everything I will accomplish in my life-in writing as in everything else-is influenced by her. I hope she knows that. I hope she realizes that everything good I do in life comes from what she taught me.

Tell me,
What is it that you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
~ My favorite Mary Oliver line, from the poem "The Summer Day"