If I were a…

Every morning my children write in a journal.
I give them prompts and they have 10 minutes to write.
We don’t go back and correct anything.
There’s no editing to be done.
The misspelled words stay misspelled and the run on sentences keep running on and on and on.
Recently I was wondering if I should encourage them to self-edit.
Should I push them to correct themselves as they go along?
And I decided no.  No, I shouldn’t.  There is plenty of time to learn to self-edit.

And then even more time to unlearn how to self-edit (which is where I find myself right now).

It’s hard to just write.
It’s hard to just let the words flow without worry.
I have a nagging need to clarify, to justify my words.
I want to use my words to be understood, but if I add too many words it gets all jumbled.

“If I were a…” they began today.
And I sat and scribbled with them.
Ten minutes.
No stopping.
No erasing.
No scratch-throughs.

If I were a superhero I would see a need and fix it.  I would look for the sad, the broken and I would help.  I would, of course, be able to fly because what good is being a superhero without such a simple superpower? And I would be able to close my eyes and breathe deeply and, like a genie in a bottle, blink and nod the sad away.  Actually, if I were a superhero, I wouldn’t go and fix things.  I would go and teach the sad, the broken how to fix it.  (Which is easier said than done, isn’t it?)  (But I’m a superhero, after all, so why not?) 

And my self-editor said, “Don’t publish that.  It’s silly.”
And it is, but it’s where I am.
It’s where we are.
And I kinda-sorta like this place, silly stories and all.