"David Cope just retired." She told me after she asked me to cut her hair into a "v" in the back and I began to whittle. 

I remember David Cope. Generally scatterbrained. Sometimes he wore shorts in the strangest season with tennis shoes and high socks and hairy, very hairy legs. 

He taught me to write. He said things like set each word like gold and write a picture and I'd write. He made me feel like I was a good, a very good writer. Maybe he made everyone feel that way but it didnt matter.

 Holding my colored red folder in his cluttered office, he would process each word intricately and speak through his poorly trimmed facial hair and say things like, "I've never read a manuscript quite like this one." I felt like I had just gift wrapped the statue of David and handed it to him for observation.

Maybe he made everyone feel that way, but it didn't matter. 

Sometimes he'd put objects in front of class or send us out into the streets of Grand Rapids along the gray cement and past the academic buildings into steepled stale churches where we would put our hands on pianos and ask to use the sanctuary and even though the energy for the room cost the church 100$ an hour they would let us sit in the pews and write. 

She told me something I never knew of David, that he had started at grcc by dusting the wood and mopping around students with sludgy shoes and careless feet. You take classes for free if you work there. This is how he began an soon he became a professor who kayaked and had hairy legs and put me on tv while my hands shook and i read poetry. Id meet fellow students at coffee shops and pick apart work and edit poetry and choose which ones could make display magazine and they called me the poetry editor.

I write this to say not that I am a great great writer or that I'm in love with David Cope or good at cutting hair into a v. I wrote this to say that you can start out a janitor and become someone who changes people. And that even if you have hairy legs and a disheveled appearance, your words and encouragement can make someone feel able and empowered. And. Like a good, good writer.