Didja ever have a moment?

I remember in high school when something significant happened in a very subtle or quiet way, Wadleigh would call it a "moment." As in, "We totally had a moment during that piece" or something to that effect if the group really connected. Or if for a second we all got really emotional. Or even if he had a brief second of lingering eye contact with somebody during which there was a tremendous amount of understanding.

Put in those terms, I totally had a moment yesterday with my creative writing teacher.

I asked him to look over a short story I wrote at the beginning of this quarter because I changed the ending, so I stayed a little past the end of class to let him read it. When he was done he asked me what I thought of the work I've done this quarter. I related a conversation that I had with a friend of mine in his morning class about how writing poetry is cathartic. He asked how I meant that; I answered that you can take bad stuff and make a really great poem out of it and feel a lot better.

So of course he asked me if he could read one of them, so I pulled one of them out- the first poem I wrote, probably the saddest one, too. He started to read it and I looked down to finish what I was doing. I glanced back up, and he wasn't reading anymore- he was looking away from the paper, blinking his eyes and actually getting choked up.

I didn't say anything- I didn't want to embarrass him, and it was one of those moments that you don't want to touch because it's so charged that it's almost electric. You don't want to touch it and get shocked.

It didn't last longer than a moment (remember Hello Dolly- the only thing shorter than a second but still very significant is a moment); he swallowed hard, composed himself, and helped me with the technical parts of the poem. We talked a little later about why it was so emotional, but for that moment I was completely stunned.

Maybe it's just because I figured that since he's a creative writing teacher that he's read enough poetry by his students to be immune to tears. Although the worst thing you can do in a creative art is become immune to how it makes you feel. Maybe I was shocked just because nothing that I've written has ever moved anyone to that kind of emotion- except my mother, but come on, it's my mother [love you, Mom. : )]. Anyway, I made the changes he suggested, but mostly I was taken aback (but not in a bad way) at how he reacted.