high wire girl

When did I become this person that lives to learn?  This person that loves to eat information and digest it and regurgitate it back to anyone, someone, like a pro.  When did I get on the this fast track quest for knowledge and when did the thirst for it become unquenchable?  Who is this girl that I have become and how did I become her?  Why did I once think I was stupid and lame and unable to achieve?

I can answer some of these questions.  I had a mother who did not teach me to believe.  She taught me to beware, be fear and be quiet.  She taught me that I was little and inconsequential.  She was wrong.  She was WRONG. 

People said it would change me, this book learned journey.  I was a naysayer.  I just took one step out onto the hire wire and while I am not yet to the other side, I know how to keep from slipping too much, or weaving to either side too much.  It’s wobbly and scary at times and I want to get down once in awhile.  But I am doing it.

Tonight I sat in a classroom for the first time in over a year.  A classroom with people and fellow students and an amazing Teacher I admire and have admired for 3 years.  I saw the professor side of him tonight and I was in awe.  The topic…religion.  What makes us question it, believe it, fear it, argue about it, etc.  There was so much that was said that caused my critical thinking skills to come to the surface.  I was alive.  Every beat of my heart was magical, every breath I took immense with power.  I was on fire.  I was on target and yet I was reserved and thoughtful and introspective and thirsty for more.  I walked out of class last, lingering, talking, arguing intellectually with my teacher.  The non all knowing but the all questioning. 

I don’t know who this girl is, the one that slings her backpack as easily as she puts her left foot in front of the right.  The one that takes notes like a pro, filling up pages with vibrancy and life, the colors of thought so tangible I can almost pick them up and eat them.  The letters oozing into each other like drips of fudge syrup down the side of a sundae glass.

My appetite for more is never less.  My pure joy at being in the moment, being where I am right now, is priceless, hopeful, exuberant.  As I sat watching a television clip offered up via a taped History Channel excerpt…I silently closed my eyes and thanked the powers that be, not any particular god, but whomever rather that could hear me…for all that I was before I found myself in all that I am now.  Not just for that but for the ability to see her.  That girl with the notebook of notes, backpack full of reference materials and  head full of questioning. 

My closing statement to the teacher, ‘There is not enough time in my life to do all that I wish to do, I waited too long to believe that I could start.”

His response, “For you time will stop long enough.  Just will it too without end.”

He laughed when I said, “wait I have to write this down.”

He then said, “Did you notice that you were the only one writing down notes?”

No….no I hadn’t.  I wasn’t paying attention to anyone else’s ride.