Words, words, words

I've never been a good speller.  This blog is riddled with typos.  My honors thesis in college was excellent but had a gazillion typos.  Same with poetry from high school and likely essays in middle school.  My written French was actually pretty good.  I'm not sure why.  I'm not sure why I've always had such bad spelling.  Poupee, my Peace Corps site partner who was like a sister I never had - both good  and bad - was perplexed by this.  I was smart, quick, witty, but a horrible speller.  She concluded after two years together it was because I don't slow down.  I will often ask Lara to help me spell a word while I'm trying to spell it out.  And 9 of 10 times I get it on my own if I just slow down.  I move through life so quickly, trying to cram so much into each moment, millisecond,  that I don't take the time to read what I've written. Correct my mistakes. Spell correctly.  

But I care about words.  I do!  I don't want them to be spelled incorrectly.  I don't want to appear ignorant. And I've leaned, like running and playing rollerderby, you need to practice writing and exercise those muscles to keep them in shape.  You need to read to learn new words, to be articulate, to see new combinations.  Words.

I became a playwright because I didn't care about certain details.  I didn't care what color chair Melanie sat in or what she was wearing.  I cared about what she was saying and who she was saying it to - what she wanted out of the exchange.  I cared mostly about dialogue or lack of dialogue.  I wanted to capture that collective sigh or gasp when something is revealed to an audience.  I care a lot about words and images and people.  

One of my goals this year is to slow down and try to respect words a little bit more and spell them correctly.  And read more. And write too.  I'm trying to have a better relationship with words.  We'll see how it goes.