See if you do this.  When someone asks you who you are, do you share what you do?  For instance, I tell people that I’m a music educator, or more precisely, a music teacher leader.  I do that because for the past 30+ years, that’s what I’ve done.  I often wonder if my kids ask if that was more important than being a mom or if my husband believes it’s more important than being a wife.  I tend to wonder if it’s the real me or a description I hide behind.  It’s quick and easy and people seem satisfied with that.  However I did something today I’ve never done, and that’s describe myself as a writer for a small class on creative writing.

What do I know about creative writing?  Who do I think I am taking on this task?  I would never claim to be a writing teacher, however, if I just add the little hyphen to who I am, I am now a musician-educator-mom-wife-writer and I CAN share my personal experience as a writer, what it means to me and how I believe words are powerful.  My words, your words and the words of those young adults in their writing class today.  Our lives, our perspectives, our experiences, our differences, all deserve to be read, heard and honored without judgement, including our own.  However, what I thought was a class on creativity and using creative strategies to begin the writing process, turned into a relationship building exercise I wasn’t expecting.

Writing is a personal thing.  Even if you’re writing about something you have little experience with, you tend to rely on similar experiences or perspectives that come with unique feelings and memories.  And when you share your writing, you can open the door to memories and feelings for others.  As I observed the six young adults in the class, they seemed fairly close, but as they began to open up and share the things they had written, you could see the conversations and questions begin, wanting to know more about each other, sharing parts of their lives they hadn’t shared before.  Closet visual artists, music lovers, dancers and yes, writers all came out as they began writing descriptions of pictures using their senses, describing the occasion of a favorite photo in their phone.  They divulged their fears and hesitancy about sharing, sometimes afraid it wasn’t detailed enough, it wasn’t as good as something else they heard, or it didn’t end the way they wanted. As everyone assured each other that what they did was great and how they identified with what their friend had written, some of the fear waned and those who had hesitated now volunteered to read.  You could see them sit up straighter, watch their eyes light up and their heads nod in agreement.  Honestly writing about who they were and how they saw life changed the atmosphere in the room.

Three hours later, the laughter became a real thing, with one student saying their face hurt from smiling.  The same student who asked for a hug at the end.  Another student whose face lit up when she found out I was going to teach at her old elementary school and asking if I would be writing about my experiences there. I encouraged them to continue their writing if for nothing else that it becomes an outlet for their thoughts and feelings, a way to get to know themselves better, a way to share and refocus their creative goals and dreams.  What started as me sharing my experiences with writing turning into a lesson for me about just how powerful words are in terms of building relationships and encouraging people to be everything they are, no matter how many hyphens it takes.