What I learned in High School Spanish

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
- Thoreau

All my life people have told me that I should be a writer. They’ve always expected me to be an English major. I’ve decided there’s a lot these people don’t know about me.

I write every moment I’m alive. But not with pen and paper, not with my computer, not with a type writer...instead I write by living each moment in my life as a moment worth writing about.

I skipped Spanish class one day when I was 16. The first day of Spring made my forehead hot. Every time I closed my eyes I felt the sun on my face, leaping from arm to arm. Dan felt it too, so we fled the school's hallways into the sun’s arms. We escaped to the field.

We call it Narnia, the field next to Woodson High School. A secret path off the trail leads to sprawling fields of green, a rare sight in Fairfax, Virginia. In the Spring, the sun dances across the fields. Finally content, we sat down and pointed out cloud shapes to each other. Sometimes we saw the same thing.

Then I saw it, a baby deer asleep in the grass. Its fur shone because it was so bright outside. I stood next to it, counting the white spots on its back, wanting so badly to pet it. Instead, I stood there with my hand over my mouth. Dan took a picture with his phone. Sometimes later on we remembered the deer and looked at the picture.

I think in that moment, when time froze and words failed me, my life changed forever. Ever since then, I’ve done everything I can to make sure every moment in my life is one I’ll remember forever. One day, I’ll sit down and all of the sudden know that I’ve lived my life to the fullest. I’ll have each day fresh in my mind, think over each thought, and just know. I don’t know what I’ll know on that day. Whatever it is, I’ll smile, sit down, and finally st write.

One day I skipped Spanish class. I forgot about reality for an hour and loved the sun with my best friend. Nature made me feel safer than the thick walls of Woodson. And when I saw the baby deer, I felt awe for the first time.

When I grow old and look over my shoulder, I won’t remember a single Spanish class from my junior year of high school. I’ll always remember the sun though. I’ll remember the fields. I’ll remember standing speechless over a baby deer on that Tuesday morning in April.

And this is how I write my life. I live it. I live it as a story I might tell one day.

Because in the end, I really don't care that I can't say 'deer' in Spanish.