When people ask me what I do, I say I’m a writer. I
don’t say I’m an author because that would mean there was actually enough money
to deposit into my account. According to my mother, I have been holding forth
before I could speak real words. Preaching it, sister.
I was afraid to write a blog. The worldwide web is
big and terrifying. I didn’t do it for fame and fortune. I didn’t have a target
audience. No agenda. After a little contemplation, I decided to start a blog
for my own need – a place to put my stories. My very own island of creativity.
Somewhere, in all of this plenty, is a journal from
young motherhood. I had written the word RANDOMONIUM to describe a typical day.
And it wasn’t out of kindness. It was underlined. A good name to cover
everything I wanted to write about - stories, opinions, recipes, pictures,
poetry.
Of course, I have never turned down the opportunity
to swirl in the middle of a room for an admiring audience. But I began writing
very simple do-dads in grade school.[1] At
some point, I began thinking of items as genders with stories - the dice in a
Yahtzee game, marbles in Chinese Checkers and even the keys on the piano. It
was so common to me, I never mentioned it. I was a mother when I found out not
everyone sees the world in numbers and genders.
Being a writer can be very distracting. Having a
blog should be easy. Yes and no. The inspiration is usually easy. The
discipline is not. Especially for some of us. Standing all day at a desk,
waiting on a word or two to type or covering the walls with notes or scribbling
ideas onto the wall. I am not that brilliant. Brilliant is as brilliant does.
I do remember standing on a slight rise of black
soil, trees and grass freshly turned over in preparation for new homes, farmland
which had been sold to the highest bidder, just one more piece of Texas soon to
be seeded for double named real estate developers selling seven floor plans,
three styles of bathroom tile and five types of front windows. Watching the sun
set, looking out at a city reflected all around us. I was holding my little
cousin’s hand. This was my first instant
inspiration. I
have never forgotten it.
I came home and wrote furiously in my three ring
binder. I wrote in class without getting caught. Scribbles, really. My friends wanted to read
my stories but I was protective. The binder
is in a box under the bed, somewhere. I have theories on the different
locations of my precious handwritten anything. I thought I would be famous but
the museum never called. I don’t envy my daughter after I go to glory.
When I was thirteen, I began writing poetry. Almost
daily until my sophomore year of college. Of course, it was a lot of fluff.
Every now and then, I would see a spark. Nothing dark and foreboding or
mystically symbolic. Just as you see it, to be read and enjoyed by people who
usually fear poetry because it is mystically symbolic. I have always loved to
read and write poetry.
I went to three schools in four years, and
graduated, and only changed my major for one semester. Teaching. The professor
was so boring; I couldn’t take two more miserable years.[2]
Now I know I would have loved teaching English.[3] We
are not very smart when we are twenty-two.
No one officially asked me what I was going to do
with my life or offered any direction. It was a different day and your life did
not have to be figured out before ninth grade second period class for the next
thirty years. We barely knew what a computer was but the really smart cookies
were getting those first degrees in computer science (sexy). The only home
computers were built by geniuses on their dining room tables. So a little
English major (not sexy) could just find her own way. I held on to my English
Major and dared anyone to make me change. “I want to be a writer.”
And then life just happened, unexpected and
unwanted. But where you are is where you are. Poetry and journaling kept me
writing. I also wrote a children’s story, occasionally submitting it to small
publications.
Before all of this, there WAS a defining moment for
the writer in me. My Daddy said, “You can always be on the newspaper!” the
crushing after-second I found out I did not make the drill team at my new
school.[4] I
probably fell out on the floor. My life was over. Never mind that I had
practiced for two weeks and then try-outs. With an undiagnosed case of raging
mono. We won’t investigate that back story.
The newspaper changed my life. I found my spot. I
was a staff writer. My senior year I was the editor for my high school
newspaper. Late nights, a lightbox and diet Dr. Pepper. Typewritten articles. Everything
done by hand – layouts, counting headlines, measuring columns. Assignments. Interviewing.
Checking proofs.
I know Bjorn Borg had a pimple on his temple because
I saw it when I was sitting right next to him in a press conference. He was the
second ranked tennis player in the world and had won Wimbledon the year before.
I was very nervous in my first press conference, a room full of sports
reporters and one other woman. My trusty cassette tape recorder was shaking in
my lap. His fur coat was draped across a Razorback director’s chair. I was
sixteen, he was twenty with brilliant blonde hair and blue eyes and his Swedish
flair.[5]
With a pimple. We are all human.
I asked him a question about his recent loss to
Jimmy Connors. He answered in a manner I still am unable to publish. But I had
my picture made with him, anyway.
After five years, I just write. Inspiration. Hard work.
(Sometimes days.) Stream of consciousness. In the car, pen and paper, writing
about the winter landscape, driving up the road to Christmas. It can be an
obsession. The more you write, the more you want to write. Somehow squeezing
life – a new grandson, dirty laundry, knitting and Mah Jongg (brain teasers),
car insurance, eggs milk butter bacon into all the folds of this accordion
life.
Numbers aren’t everything. So I say. But it is
amazing to me that readers all over the world have hit the button, five digits
worth, to see about Randomonium, making up a true United Nations, our stories
swirling around the world.
Thank you for five years of reading. I am just a
storyteller with the opportunity to put words on paper.
Years ago, at a small,
casual event, I met a popular newspaper columnist. For years, I was a faithful reader of her
stories in the state newspaper. Naturally, I was excited to meet her. After
introducing myself, I told her how much I enjoyed her stories. There were no
other people standing with us. She said, “Thank you for your readership.” That
was it. She slipped out of the conversation like the saucy barbecue ribs she
was making a b-line for. The Queen had spoken.
Thank you for your time. Thank you for the
occasional person who mentions a post. I have a friend who still chuckles when
he asks me about a bride wearing red tennis shoes. Thank you for your
comments.
Thank you for letting me.
We are not going to meet at the barbeque. You’ll be
my invited guest. I’ll be throwing it down for your encouragement and support
for these five years. And more to come!
 |
| In my office August 10, 2018 |
[1]
Fred the Tom Cat – The First , Randomonium 4-22-18
[2] My
sister and sister-in-law are both loving, giving teachers on the frontlines of
teaching.
[3] I
would only qualify for teaching literature because my blogging style has
devastated my grammar and punctuation skills.
[4] I
had been on a drill team in another state the year before, meeting the
qualifications of kicking way above my head and doing a cartwheel split,
important talents for young Southern ladies wishing to twirl in the middle of a
football field or a basketball
gymnasium. Also impressive party tricks for the rest of your life until you
have ankle surgery.
[5]
Borg may have obtained a Computer Science Degree between matches.
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