Humility…

Humility.

Not something I am particularly well acquainted with. Granted, I’m not a very proud (boastful) person either. However, when it comes to my writing skills, I have had occurrence over the last few years to recognize that I am not as horrible as I think that I am. There are times in my writing groups or in my classes where I will read peoples work and my immediate thought or critique is, “Seriously, give up. No, really. I hear accounting is a good career.”

And then I hear my wife’s voice nagging me, “Be nice.”

Now, let me just set one thing straight. Being nice is just not in my character. I’m brash, I’m curt, I’m honest. I’m kind of like the 2×4 that most people need to be hit with (or at least I’ve been told that (ok, I might be a bit proud of that aspect… just a bit)). So, when my wife tells me to be nice, I have to take a deep breath and remember that I am dealing with humans who have feelings… so much ugh.

And then…

Then it happens. That moment when I read Langston Hughes or Robert Frost of Dylan Thomas and I am reminded in a brutal fashion that I am not that great.

Oh, how the mighty do fall.

Where just a few seconds ago I stood high on a pedestal and sneered at the masses of the inadequate and doggerel, I now look up from the crater that has become my bed and I reach up, stretching forth my hand toward the gods of the written word and wonder when… when will be my moment to shine like the stars that they have become, twinkling in the heavens and haunting my thoughts like ghosts from a time I long to bring back.

How I long to walk amongst those stars and hear their stories. How I wish to sit for a while under the tutelage of those men and women who weave the words wistfully and without work.

Just to create something, anything, that will touch another soul the way that they have touched mine.

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p.s. A is for alliteration