I’m sitting in my backyard on a sunny early spring afternoon. My blue spiral notebook is on my lap and a magic pen is in my hand. The pen doesn’t look that special if you see it in my bag or on my desk, just a black gelstick pen with a cap. The magic begins when I touch it to paper. Two fussy blue jays chase each other overhead. “Are they mad at each other or just playing?” My pen writes the question before I have time to think of it. A squirrel buries a pecan in the next door neighbor’s yard, his bushy tail twitching as he digs. “How will he remember where he hid it?” my pen asks. I really don’t know. There are tiny yellow flowers tucked throughout the greening grass. “Why do we call them weeds?” the pen questions. A yellow and black butterfly the size of my hand flits by. My pen records its brief appearance. A gentle breeze stirs the air around me and my pen takes note. I hear children playing down the street, and my pen scribbles the sounds across the page. The sun goes behind a cloud, then peeks out again but I’m not looking at the sky. I know this because of the shadow of my pen that follows the in and out dance with the sun. What good is all this magic from a pen on such a pleasant day, I think. I really don’t know. But my pen keeps writing. Taking word pictures of the world around me and the thoughts running through my head to be read to some child I don’t even know before he or she goes to bed. “They will be able to see the pictures and hear your thoughts,” the pen explains. Oh! Now that’s magic.
Teacher Olay
