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Personal Narrative: The Color Purple

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Hunched over the desk, I tapped my pen. The timer ticked. I was waiting for a synonym — any synonym — to save me from —
“Time,” the judge announced.
I trudged to the front of the classroom and began: “In The Color Violet, a woman named Celie overcomes oppression…”
“The lessons in The Color Violet epitomize...”
Before I knew it, I sat on a frigid yellow bus with a speech tournament ballot that read, “By the way, the movie is The Color Purple.”
But I knew the title. I could rattle off the differences between the movie and the book, and I could even recite important quotes. I was also a speechie and a debater who had practiced pulling out those kinds of examples as quickly as smooth-talking politicians. I debated genetically modified food, resource …show more content…

I started repeating purple in the shower. I practiced the tongue movements during class. I did pen drills while saying purple, I recorded myself saying purple, and I even wore purple.
Slowly, my purples became eights, nines, and — rarely — tens (my tongue has a hard time tumbling).
While I held that creased ballot on the bus, I replayed those moments in my head. I knew the judge was right — violet couldn’t replace purple (purple is redder) — yet I couldn’t bring myself to say the word publicly. My impromptu speech was about confronting challenges, but unlike Celie, I didn’t confront mine. I hid my impediment, even though I saw its effects whenever I explained how a word could upset a sentence, whenever I used a countless, innumerable myriad of synonyms, or whenever I admitted my love for language.
And I’m beginning to realize that maybe my “impediment” is nothing to be ashamed of. I may be the speechie who flusters her words, but I’m also the debater who sometimes forgets to flow her opponent’s arguments because I recognize how beautiful they sound. I’m the freshman who joined speech and debate because I knew how those sounds were created. And I’m the senior who needs to work on one of those sounds, because I still can’t say

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