Positivity
I seem to have a wealth of acquaintances who’ve had a positive impact on my life. There are teachers, friends, family, co-workers, and even an employer or two, which is actually really heartening when I look back and realize: most of the people in my life don’t suck. So, that’s cool.
My gut instinct with any of these prompts (whether they’re the writing prompts, or the requests from my wife to tell her about “x random thing”) isn’t to pick a story that falls under that category, it’s always to pick the story. More of that literalism coming in to wreak havoc. So, what’s THE story about someone who had a positive impact on my life?
My sister and I happened to see our high school speech coach/English teacher, Ms. Parker, after we had graduated and were entering that “new adult” phase. Ms. Parker had stopped by our mother’s booth at the fall craft fair, and I remember being compelled to thank her because of the positive impact she’d had on my life.
Speech was challenging for me, especially in terms of finding where my strengths truly shined. My dad forced me to sign up for the activity when I was in 7th grade. At the time, the prospect of doing public speaking, on purpose felt horrifying to 12 year-old me. Somehow, it became the one activity I looked forward to, in part thanks to Ms. Parker’s efforts. Once I was eased out of my melodramatic phase and urged to try one of more informative categories, it was actually fun. I’m no great actor, so I’m pretty sure any dramatic interpretation I attempted ended up ringing pretty hollow, even if I was enjoying the experience of reciting a poem or relaying the gruesome details of a story. But, when I actually had to convey information in an engaging way, that’s when things started to click. I did 3 years of Original Oratory, qualifying to compete in the MNSHL Class A tournament my senior year.
That specific experience was one I thought back on a lot over the summer of 2012. At the time, Minnesota was voting on a ban against same-sex marriage, and somehow, I let a recruiter talk me into running phone banks once a week, where we called people and talked with them about their views on the ban and encouraged them to vote “no.” The people who showed up were a pretty welcoming crowd, but I really didn’t know any of them well, and giving them a whole spiel about how to do the calls, examples for what they could say in response, and even getting on the phone myself was… a lot, especially for someone as introverted as me. The truth is, I was there as an act of self-preservation, because I knew I would hate myself if I didn’t do everything I could to fight the marriage ban. But, having had that 6 years of practice to call back to, made it so much easier to step into an otherwise foreign role over that summer and fall.
I didn’t do any of the extemporaneous categories when I competed, so the idea of coming up with coherent thoughts on a subject in front of a bunch of people is definitely outside of my wheelhouse, but it’s not the room full of people who would scare me. I remember for a couple of seasons, we had t-shirts made with the phrase “What most people fear more than death/we do for fun” on the front and back respectively. And that was always a point of pride for me.
I can’t remember why both my sister and I had effusive praise to offer her that afternoon at the craft fair, but I remember telling her how she had helped me and how grateful I was to have had her as a coach and a teacher.
Ms. Parker is retiring this year, a few of the teachers I had in high school seem to be retiring this year actually. It’s a little sobering to think about, since it feels like there are fewer familiar faces whenever I go back there.
I keep thinking I need to find a different source for these writing prompts, because so many of these come with what seem like trite answers, and it feels like cheating. I suppose just because it seems obvious and easy for me to formulate a response, it doesn’t make it any less worthwhile, but these sorts of subjects aren’t really the kinds of things I’d prefer to be writing about. However, when I spend more time ruminating over what I think I should be writing, I spend so much less time actually doing it. This is training wheels stuff, which isn’t exactly fun (and more than a little bit clunky) but it’s probably still necessary, at least for a little while.
Posted: by Kate
