In The Beginning

I love writing. It's been both entertainment and therapy to me, quite literally. Both friend and foe, my writing has been a valuable companion. It's dredged up emotions I didn't want to feel and maybe didn't even know I had. My writing has provided a service sometimes, I think, both by entertaining and also, hopefully, by lifting some of us from some lonely, scary place. In the odd moment or two, there have been people who are of the opinion that I should write "for a living." Far-fetched idea. Then again, "for a living" is sort of the reason I write anything - whether anyone else reads it or not. The top drawer of my dresser is full of my scribbling and notes, mostly done during a very bad time in my life - and those are only for me to read!

I have a journal that I write-out long hand. It was given to me by a best friend, years ago. I wrote on the inside front cover, who she is and the significance of the friendship. As if I'd somehow forget! I date the entries in that journal. I can go for weeks at a time with at least one entry each day, if not more, and then there are spans of years where nothing has been written. That journal is private, for my eyes only, and yet I feel the need to update myself, whenever some long period of time passes between entries. I wonder why that is? I like the continuity. I guess. I recently used it to determine exactly how old my cat was. (May she rest in peace).

I wrote a little paper in 2nd grade once. I used the phrase "awfully good" - as in "that cheesecake was awfully good". My teacher gave me a red mark on that phrase. She didn't think something should or could be "awfully" good. Still don't understand that red mark. Cheesecake IS awfully good. No doubt about it. I authored a work of fiction in 6th grade that I thought would be very moving. Those based-on-a-true-story "movies of the week" were particularly influential and I remember my story had something to do with cancer. My fictional cancer victim experienced a remarkable recovery. I was into happy endings. It was supposed to be a tear-jerker with a moral lesson, but as long as I was in control, no one in my story was going to die! I particularly enjoyed a creative writing class I had in high school. I got fairly decent marks on those papers, although the content of the stories that grew out of my head were awfully cheesy. (See, it works!) Mostly I remember marks for all the fragmented sentences, though. I kept a few of those papers. I'm thinking that might have been so that now, when I look at them again, I can experience a private moment of mortification for having passed them around the room for my classmates to critique. (The comments were surprisingly supportive. The class was an elective. So I guess maybe they were more interested in the writing than in goofing off and making snide comments about cheesy stories written by unpopular 10th graders. Come to think of it, I don't remember the captain of the football team being in that class.)

When my grandma died, the task of writing a note to publish in the local paper, came to me. At the same time, those thank you cards that required more than a perfunctory note of thanks, came to me as well. My letters to her close friends and relatives were sincere and heartfelt; just like Grandma would have wanted them to be. Those writings are the first time I can remember feeling emotions literally drain from me. I couldn't do them all in one sitting. It caught me by surprise that I needed to take a break in between writings. It wasn't pleasant, but I'm not sure it wasn't necessary. I've come to realize that method of emotion-drain might very well be important for my well-being.

This summer a child I love was hurt very badly and I was sort of asked/sort of volunteered to keep up the online journal of her recovery. It was challenging, painful, and very very rewarding. It still is. (She's doing great, by the way.)

My hometown is feeling the effects of the struggling economy and a long-time local business closely associated with my family is closing its doors. I wrote a letter to the editor and included some cute and personal reminiscence of the business and how it shaped some of my upbringing. The editor of the paper wrote back and wants to publish this note in a Guest Columnist section of the paper. I'm awfully proud of that. (Okay now, that particular usage, I agree, does not work). I'm pretty proud. Better. When it's published, if they were alive, Grandma and Grandpa would have cut it out and stuck it to the fridge door. They would have loved that! I'm sure they do anyway.

Um, I can't explain it. But it feels like that's where this writing should stop. I'm going to try my hand at this blogging thing since it seems like such a natural direction for me at the moment. If you enjoy this, maybe you'll check back from time to time. Or maybe this will just be for me to stuff in my top dresser drawer. I don't know.

I'm not doing this to pay my bills. Still, I think I do write for my living.