literacy as freedom

As I sit (figuratively) chewing the end of my fountain pen and gently bemoaning the fact that I have to stay in and write the editorial for the summer issue of the journal instead of going out to play/tidy the kitchen cupboards/do anything apart from grapple with the next 900 words or so I realise that I’m actually pretty lucky. Some colleagues seem to imagine that all I have to do to write is to sit down at my desk, get out a nice crisp blank sheet of paper and my pen and words just stream forth and ‘Hey presto!’, the editorial is written. Not so. I’m being honest when I tell people I really struggle with writing and that it is never easy. As I sit down to ‘do some writing ’ I get reminded of the dreaded school essays such as the one entitled ‘What I did on my summer holidays’. I can still remember the sense of impending doom when I tried to write the essay. While Wendy (who had long hair and was ‘interesting’) was able to write about her trip to Mediterranean, I tried to summon up something exciting to write about playing in the back garden. I was confident while opening the exercise book and writing the title. I remained quite confident up to the point of carefully underlining the title (using a ruler, of course). After that it was a complete and nerve-wracking blank. I always managed to write something, but it was never quite the ‘right ’ some-thing. I’d never heard of writer’s block at the age of nine, I suffered it and still do. BUT regardless of the apparent torment and torture I experience as editor of a journal I know I’m lucky. I can write. I can read. And most of the time it is relatively easy. My world is much richer for the literacy skills I take (almost) for granted. My world is safer, fuller of opportunities and easier to participate in because I can read and write. My world is a world full of words. Words tha