Am I a Writer?

“I am participating in the ‘Writing Contest: You Are A Writer’ held by Positive Writer.” - See more at: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-a-writer/#sthash.HXT65GQg.dpuf

 I am participating in the writing contest:

http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-a-writer/

“I am participating in the ‘Writing Contest: You Are A Writer’ held by Positive Writer.” - See more at: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-a-writer/#sthash.HXT65GQg.dpuf

“I am participating in the ‘Writing Contest: You Are A Writer’ held by Positive Writer.” - See more at: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-a-writer/#sthash.HXT65GQg.dpuf

“I am participating in the ‘Writing Contest: You Are A Writer’ held by Positive Writer.” - See more at: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-a-writer/#sthash.HXT65GQg.dpuf

“I am participating in the ‘Writing Contest: You Are A Writer’ held by Positive Writer.” - See more at: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-a-writer/#sthash.HXT65GQg.dpuf

“I am participating in the ‘Writing Contest: You Are A Writer’ held by Positive Writer.” - See more at: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-a-writer/#sthash.HXT65GQg.dpuf

When people ask me what I do, I don’t say I’m a writer. I never have. The words linger in my mouth, trapped, like the bubbles in the champagne bottle that you can’t tell are there until the cork explodes with a bang. I am fifty years old. I have been writing since I first picked up a pencil. My earliest manuscripts have faded with time, but I can still read the notes from my teachers. “Amazing…..you’ll be an author someday!” Or “I know you’ll be published someday!” 

I kept those words tucked inside my heart. When my high school English teacher slashed my work to pieces, I hung onto those earlier comments and told myself he was just one person. But his words lingered, too.

Over the years my word count grew. Journals, letters, short stories, poems, songs, and the beginnings of many novels. Just the beginnings, though.  Whether it was one thousand or ten thousand words in, I would always stop….defeated by the unknown, defeated by my own reluctance to acknowledge just how much I wanted to be a writer. Or did I? Did I want to write or did I want to say I had written? The enormity of the task before me pushed me under, held me in the riptide of uncertainty and insecurity.

When I turned forty I gave myself a gift. I signed up for a writing class. A novel writing class. And I told myself I would finish this story no matter what. That was the first class. There were others. Then there were writing conferences, critique groups, more classes. I finished one novel. Then another. I entered a few contests with short essays and stories. I always have a work-in-progress. Usually more than one. 

Do I call myself a writer? No. Not really. Not in a confident “THIS IS WHO I AM” tone of voice. I have been asked why I don’t. I don’t know. I suspect it’s because I’m afraid the response would be, “Oh, what have you written?”

And since the few published stories are unlikely to be known to the questioner, I fear I would stumble through my answer, fumbling for words, struggling to explain that while I am a WRITER, I do not (yet) have a New York Times bestselling novel on the shelves of every Barnes and Noble in the country. Maybe someday. 

But they are not asking for my life story. When someone asks, “What do you do?” they are looking for that “Where do you go every day? What do you do?” answer. And since I do have a day job, I answer with that. “I’m a teacher.” And maybe if the conversation continues and the flight is a long one (and perhaps I pull out my work-in-progress for a bit), then, and only then, will I hesitantly, reluctantly share my dream. 

Because to put my dream out there, under the cold glaring light of reality, is to be forced to examine it. To look at it closely and confirm for myself, yes, this is what I really want. 

Could I stop myself from writing? No. Never. I write because I am compelled to write. Writing helps me organize my world, my thoughts, my interactions with others. Does that make me a writer? I think it does. I can acknowledge it to myself. One of these days I will be able to share it with the world.

Reclaiming the Jungle

When we moved into our house nine months ago, the backyard resembled a jungle. The blackberry thicket was about four feet high and although the yard was a lush mass of vegetation, the only recognizable plants were the blackberries and many varieties of weeds. On top of all that, the entire yard was on a slope, ending in what the realtor described as a ravine. 

August, 2012- completely overgrown with blackberries and weeds. Hard to believe what was hiding underneath!

The first thing we did was get out the weedwacker and chop everything down to ground level. Once the blackberry vines were gone, we discovered two blueberry bushes, six rhododendrons, two azalea bushes, and approximately ten large stumps, signs that once upon a time the yard had actually contained fairly significant trees.

You can see the ground! Blueberry bushes, rhododendrons, and azaleas appeared. We planted a row of cypress trees to provide (eventually) a little privacy.

The next step was to figure out what we wanted to do with the yard. We spent the winter months planning and dreaming. We looked at websites and gardening books, talked to friends, and waited through the rainy days of winter in Seattle for spring to arrive.

I knew I wanted a raised bed for vegetable gardening. My husband began building it during the wet winter months. It immediately filled with water and stayed a soggy, muddy mess until mid-May.

Peas, lettuce, carrots, and squash are starting to come up!

Our yard will not be complete without a grape arbor!

Love the rainbow.....

I like to think of the yard as a work in progress, much like my current novel. Every weekend we head outside and make a little bit of progress. We’ve added steps, planted trees, and started work on a gravel pathway. Things don’t always go the way we planned, and that’s okay. Sometimes my stories take odd twists and turns, too. But each time I’m out there I discover something special and wonderful and find another reason to fall in love with our new home.

We are almost finished with the steps.....

The pathway will take a few more days to complete, I think. It leads to a lovely little area, surrounded by rhodies, where I can sit quietly and watch the birds at the feeders and the squirrels rummaging for the leftovers.

Who Collects Old Books?

There’s something about old books that appeals to me. When I say old, I mean anything published in the early 1900’s (or even earlier). When I hold a really old book in my hands, I think about all the people who owned the book before I did. I look inside for inscriptions and make up stories about the previous readers. 

            “lot’s of love to Elaine From Janice and Karen- 30-6-65”

There’s even a long row of xxxxs under the inscription. Who were Janice and Elaine? Were they siblings? Other relatives? They spelled ‘lots’ incorrectly but that doesn’t tell me much. The date is written differently than I would expect, so were they from another country? I’ll never know and I’m fine with that. It’s still fun to wonder.

            My favorite books are the really old ones. I have a book of Andersen’s Fairy Tales with a color cover plate that was published in 1884 and purchased in a used book store in New Jersey sometime in the early 1970’s. The book has been in my possession ever since and while it’s not in the greatest condition (for some reason, the little mermaid on the cover looks like she has a moustache), it is still a pleasure to pick up and read. 

            “Pilgrims of the Night” by Frederick William Faber was another old book I discovered in a used book store. I bought it just a few years ago, drawn to it by the simple fact that it was published over one hundred years ago. I’ve never even read it (Christian poetry just isn’t really my thing) but I couldn’t walk away from another book published in 1884. It even had a handwritten inscription inside, dated 12/25/1885. 

            Of course, my absolute favorite old books are the ones in my Oz collection. I think I’ve written about these before, so I won’t go into detail, except to say that there is nothing like pulling out an old copy of “Rinkitink in Oz” or “Kapumpo in Oz” to make me feel like I’m eight years old again. 

            And finally there are the books I read as a child and tracked down as an adult. When I was four or five, my father read me a book about a little boy who lived in an electric house. The only thing I remembered about this story was that one day something happened and he ended up doing everything backwards, including taking a shower upside down while a machine scrubbed his feet.

          Memories of this book lingered for years but I never had any luck finding it. Then a few years ago the wonders of the Internet solved the puzzle and I was able to not only learn the title of the book, but find a copy in a used bookstore on the other side of the country. 

         “Lazy Tommy Pumpkinhead” now sits on a shelf in my office, reminding me that books are powerful enough to keep a hold on us for a lifetime.    

       Do you have old books you’ve discovered or rediscovered? I’d love to hear about them.  

Pilgrims of the Night by Frederick William Faber

Lazy Tommy Pumpkinhead by William Pene DuBois

Pinocchio in America by Angelo Patri

Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

Mother West Wind "How" Stories by Thornton W. Burgess

         

     

Valentine's Day

            Quite a few years ago I visited a neighbor who had the most beautiful raspberry plants in her yard. Huge bushes towered over us, and we stood in the warm July sunshine and picked berries by the handful. I came home determined to grow my own berry bushes. A quick visit to the nursery, an hour or so of digging, and soon there were six small raspberry plants lined up along the back fence. 

            It took a few years, but they did grow and begin to produce berries. Not quite the bucketfuls that grew in my neighbor’s yard, but enough for us to enjoy and there were more each year. The plants became bushy and overgrown and every now and then I would prune them back, but for the most part I ignored them until mid-summer when it was time to go out there and pick some berries.

            A few more years and the plants were finally producing lots of berries. There were enough berries to eat, turn into jam, and use for pies. I loved watching the small fruits begin to bud in the spring and eventually turn from green to red in the warm sunshine of July and August. 

            And then came Valentine’s Day. February was mild that year. In a burst of energy and romantic enthusiasm, my husband decided to clean up the yard for me. The sounds of the lawn mower and the weedwacker splintered the air all afternoon as he worked. Every now and then I would glance outside. The lawn was edged in ruler-straight lines, bushy dandelion weeds had disappeared from the grass, and fresh bark was sprinkled around the garden island. The yard looked beautiful. And then he came inside. 

            “Honey, you are going to be so happy,” he said. “I finally got that overgrown area by the fence cleaned up.”

            In the middle of washing dishes at the kitchen sink, I froze. “Which overgrown area?” I asked. Images of the yard flashed through my mind. There was only one area by a fence that could be considered to be overgrown, but he wouldn’t, would he? He knew what raspberry bushes looked like, right?

            Wrong. 

            “Show me,” I said. I’m sure he could tell from my face that something was not quite right.

            I followed him outside and he pointed at the back fence. All that remained of the raspberry bushes were a few scraggly canes sticking out of the ground, each no more than a few inches tall. 

            I bit my lip. “You didn’t.” It wasn’t a question.

            “I didn’t what?” The excitement was gone from his voice and his forehead was furrowed.

            “Those were the raspberry plants. They were supposed to look like that.”

            “I cut down the raspberry plants?”

            I didn’t say anything and we both stared at the bare ground.

            “Will they grown back?” he asked, his voice hopeful.

            I giggled. “Probably. In about ten years.”  There wasn’t anything else to say or do. They were just plants, when it came down to it. And he’d meant well. 

             “I’m sorry.”

            I knew he was.

            “It’s okay,” I said. I went back inside to finish the dishes. 

            In a few minutes he zipped through the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” he said, grabbing his car keys. 

            My Valentine gift that year was a landscaped yard and six small raspberry plants he managed to find at a local nursery. We planted them the following weekend and he promised to leave them alone the next time he cleaned up the yard. It took time, but they did grow, and the old canes grew too. Eventually we had a large raspberry patch along the back fence, and on warm summer days I would grab a handful of berries for my valentine.