The long and winding road

that leads / to your door / will never disappear

This week, like clockwork, it grows.

The final day of finals week stands at the ready, and in the days that lead to its glorious arrival, my typically quiet break and prep roar to life with conversation. Students trickle in, form a line, and mumble among their colleagues as they wait to discuss the direction of their final papers--due tomorrow, by the way. With their colleagues, and with me in conference, these students disclose their concerns and articulate the process of their drafting. It's a heartwarming time for me because it validates the process I hope they'll grasp before they leave my classroom in June.

I am not a masochist; I do not assign composition during exam week in order apply pressure to their already stressful lives. I do not assign writing so that they'll suffer this week and perhaps truly appreciate the fact that they're given a vacation. I do not assign writing because I believe in unifying their collective thinking on the issues that shape our world. I assign so that I can depart confidently with a stack of unique, slightly confident voices in my tote bag, for the winter affords time to read. Slowly.

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I hear voices, one by one, as they move forward in line. "So here's my introduction, Mr. Petty." I don't really know if it's what you're looking for."

"Put the paper down," I say. "Tell me what the point of this essay is. Verbally. Please."

And then I wait for awhile. When the soft sounds start to fall forward, I sometimes make funny faces. Sometimes I close my eyes because, as they artfully stumble over canned thesis statements and familiar verbiage, I feel like I'm swallowing cubes of ice shaped like stop signs.

(Maybe a stop sign is the wrong figure, but I'm definitely ingesting an oddly shaped command.)

Despite my contortions and my countenance, I love the listening. I love hearing them come to terms with the purpose of their writing. I love listening to them realize they are not writing for me or to me, but instead as a means to prove something to someone somewhere.

When they realize this, their tractor beam eyes bore a hole through my frame and fixate on an attainable mirage. It's a plateau, a clover field of respite in the not-so-distant future.

They bounce off like elk in pursuit, but I'm sure this excitement subsides in time. Writing is, after all, a process. At some point, likely late at night, they'll bash their elk horns dramatically against the wall (or keyboard) in hopes of shaking the kernels of truth they found blossoming in our dialogue from their stems. Sometimes, amazingly, petals fall to floor where they're quickly collected and funneled onto the computer screen.

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It's Thursday evening now, and tomorrow's submission deadline approaches (along with any round of exams). The long and winding road is not so long and winding anymore. At the last bell I spoke to only two students. There's a small queue forming in my digital inbox, but it's not the same.

I have high hopes for voices tomorrow. The kind coming from the essay of a developing writer, at least.