While it may be to your ultimate surprise, this blog is not the first place I’ve ever laid down the words of our great language. Much like how you have stumbled across this blog on purpose, by accident or guilt that I may ask you about it, I too have stumbled across something readers — my Fifth Grade Writing Journal. Below is a poem I wrote when I first learned to read. I chose to write about Wisconsin, because already having very few friends, I thought I’d gamble losing whatever social credibility I had left.
I’m not even sure where to begin. Perhaps I should start with this fact – Did I think there were other rain forests in Wisconsin? Was I under the impression that there was one to begin with? Did I think that just because I didn’t see a strip mall for a good few miles, I was in something as tropical and foreign as a rain forest? My upbringing in the suburbs rings true here. Especially with this line, “The wind blowing against my skin feels like a nice, cool, fan.” Usually, great poets compare their socialized surroundings to that of something in nature. I, on the other hand, compare nature to an appliance easily obtainable from Venture.
The fifth-grade-Bridge does get some credit for using the adjective “fresh” to describe a choir. Maybe I had some inkling that I was going to be a choir nerd when I grew up so I wanted to give credo to that effort with a unique adjective. High five fifth-grade Bridge!! You missed my hand. Let’s try that again. Okay, now go run to play four square with yourself.
The mood changes quickly as I compare the sun to a burning fire and then quickly recover the lighter mood by noticing that I’ll be fed soon. I’m hypoglycemic, so every happy story ends with the possibility and proximity of when I will eat.
There has to be something good about looking back at the embarrassing childhood you. Maybe it’s this embarrassment that my mom was feeling when she’d give me those looks that would say, “Oh God, my child is the weird one isn’t she? And I thought she could’ve been a Kohl’s model or at least marry rich.”
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must walk away from this blog burning bright like a gas stove oven or a toaster oven or a toaster. Toast?
Yep, I still got it.
