The Paper

She did not know how to write. Though her handwriting, use of grammar and sometimes even her spelling were perfectly acceptable, she could not put the ideas jumbled in her head onto a sheet of paper in any organized and comprehensible way.

She had found herself in advanced and AP English classes in high school; a fact she found baffling. People said she was smart. She did not agree. Her grades were average and she found her school work unbelievably boring and often did the very minimum of what was expected of her.

But, she loved to read and consumed books regularly so she was very happy to be in the classes where more interesting books were assigned. But to write a paper about the book she had just read was a task she considered so gruesome that it was best left to be done at the last possible moment. Usually between the hour of 11 and12 the night before it was due.

She knew her papers were an embarrassment and she felt sorry for any teacher forced to read them less by grade them. But surprisingly, though the papers were often colored in red, the grades were usually average or higher. And so she floated through high school never doubting for a moment that writing a paper was a useless skill; her passion for reading should not translate to the need to write about what she had read. Assigning papers was just one of the many ways teachers chose to torture their students.

Somehow her high school apathy wasn’t enough to keep her out of a half way decent college or an Honors class taught by a celebrated professor. He gave her first paper a D minus with one single note: Did you even bother to read this before you turned it in?

Of course, the answer was no, she had not. Nor could she remember the last time she had actually read one of her papers.

But she loved this class and needed at least a C to take the second half of it the following semester. And so, she determined to write a passable paper.

She was a walker. She walked everywhere and for many reasons. Sometimes for exercise, sometimes just to get somewhere, and sometimes to clear her head.

The next paper was assigned and due in two weeks. She promised herself that she would not procrastinate. She would take the full two weeks to write it. She went for a walk.

She started to think about what she wanted to write and how she wanted to write it. She started to write the paper; in her head. She got home and wrote it all down. Then she read it. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t good.

The next day she went for a walk. She thought about what worked and what didn’t work with her paper. She got home and crossed things out, re-wrote entire passages, and added new paragraphs where needed. Then she read it. Better, but not good.

She did this most days until the paper was due. She read her final draft and did not feel shame at its complete inferiority compared to what her classmates must be writing, but she was sure that it was still not good. She turned it in and waited to be humiliated that her writing was so subpar. She probably shouldn’t have been in that class in the first place.

The next day he handed back her paper- A minus with one single note: I cannot understand why all of your writing has not been like this.

I still have that paper. It was the first time I had truly written anything. Organized my thoughts and figured out a way to share them with the world.

I wrote almost all of my papers in college by walking to sort out my ideas before putting pen to paper. I discovered that I enjoyed the process of writing. Not just for academics, but stories, essays, letters, scripts, lyrics, whatever. Quite simply, it’s fun.

The benefits of walking for your health are often lauded, but walking is also a way to quiet the world to give your ideas some room to gel, organize themselves and even surprise you. It is a way to meditate on your feelings and thoughts while feeling rooted to the ground beneath you.

Also, walking saved my college career and gave me the space to learn to write. And I got to take the second semester of that class.