Beginnings

I don't call myself a writer. I feel like that's a label others can use for me, but I feel arrogant using it for myself. I don't call myself a runner, either, even though I have completed 3 marathons, 6 half-marathons and various other races. It's a weird quirk I can't really explain. I don't know if I'll ever be able to call myself a writer. I would like to try, however, to illuminate how I became someone who enjoys writing. 

It started with a love of reading, really. I was reading at 4 years of age, but it was Miss White, my second grade teacher, who really lit the fuse. She was a mess, as teachers go. She was brand new out of college and was thrown into a first/second split. We spent a lot of time combing her hair and listening to her read The Little House on the Prairie books. I'm not kidding about combing her hair, either. I really think she was out of her depth. 

I must have read that series of books two dozen times over the next several years. I didn't memorize them, but I knew the characters well. I could understand what motivated the characters. The books I picked up from then on were largely character driven. I will confess that I read the Sweet Valley High series, but I also devoured books about Ramona, Nancy Drew and others. I read the same books multiple times. I read fast, so reading things again helped me catch nuances. 

The more I read, the more I loved. Sure, I read trashy books like those by Christopher Pike. I remember being in sixth grade and having some free time. I became so absorbed in the book that my surroundings disappeared. One of my classmates had to shake me to tell me it was time to go home. I entered the world that the author had created. I was able to see what the author was describing, the scenes they were setting, everything. I have always been socially awkward. It hasn't been until recently that I've blossomed in that respect. It was easier to read and immerse myself in fictional worlds than to cope with reality. 

I took my first stab at writing in the Young Author's competition in third grade. I started writing a fanciful tale about a damsel in distress. I showed it to my mom and she suggested that I write what I know. I was devastated! I felt like the story, as I began it, was going to be a big hit. I begrudgingly went back to the drawing board. 

I ended up writing about a family trip we had taken to Texas. I've read it a few times since having written it. My mom knew what she was talking about, because I won for my grade level. It was an invaluable lesson. 

It makes me think of Jo, from Little Women, or Anne of Green Gables. Both had these magnificent imaginations, but when they wrote about the things they knew, they found success. Writing about what I know is never boring because I don't see the world the way everyone else does. 

For example, pregnancy for me was incredibly poetic. I enjoy the word gravid. It comes from the Latin word gravidus and it means that you are laden with child. I feel like gravid exemplifies how I felt. I was heavy with child in a literal sense-my center of gravity shifted, my hips changed, the pull of the earth on my body was stronger. But I also feel like I was gravid with possibility. There is something emotionally heavy about creating a life. From one millisecond to the next, cells start dividing. A life is created where there wasn't one. 

I look at my kids belly buttons and I am amazed that for 40 weeks, they survived inside my body because of a cord that came from that belly button. Their life, the one created in a millisecond, will hopefully continue for years after I've breathed my last. That is a heavy thought.

It's simplistic to say being a parent is like molding children out of clay. Clay is inanimate. It sits still while you consider when and where to add or subtract clay. You can step away from molding clay to gain perspective. You can sleep on it, if you get tired, to see if maybe the sculpture should go in a different direction. 

Being a parent is like wrangling tornadoes. There is no plan book. There are no classes offered at the local community college. Each tornado is unique, is proceeded by a cone of silence, produces funnel clouds and may or may not include a microburst. Bekah, my beautiful daughter, is a counter-clockwise tornado. She has always had music playing in her head that doesn't match what's playing in mind (or in the minds of those around her). 

Bekah runs the gamut from F1 to F5, both with happy and not-so-happy emotions-but both can inflict damage on their surroundings. It's when the wind stops blowing, when the cone of silence descends, that you should be concerned. When she first learned to crawl, I mistook her silence to mean she was playing quietly on her own (something Jeremy did regularly). In fact, she found a blue crayon, started chomping on it and crawled all the way up the stairs. I found her sitting on the floor in her room, surrounded by blue handprints, with blue all over her face. 

Jeremy, on the other hand, was clinical and focused from day one. He would play with toys, on his own, for hours. He didn't enjoy his first birthday cake because he didn't want to get his hands messy. He didn't touch things directly, rather he had two blue Legos that he held, one in each hand, to touch things. 

No, with Jeremy the hazard wasn't (isn't) the cone of silence. It's the microburst. He is calm as long as there is a routine. His preschool teacher from last year told us that he would grill her in the morning about the schedule for the day. If she deviated from the schedule, he pointed it out to her. He also struggled with transitions. Mrs. Irwin would give a few choices about how to use their free time. Jeremy, if he disagreed with her choices, would fling himself on the carpet and suck his thumb. He has used this technique on me, with varying degrees of success. His microbursts hit when least expected. He may go berserk if a friend steals his table hat (his word for his baseball cap)--I mean, full on, throwing things, kicking and screaming berserk. So I catalog that response, I plan for it, I prepare for it. As I see the same situation unfolding, I take precautionary measures to lessen the impact and-bam-just like that, nothing happens. No reaction from him. I end up looking foolish, standing in a defensive position for what seems like no reason.

You don't mold tornadoes. You admire them as forces of nature. You prepare for them as best you can, try to minimize the damage they create and work hard to create an early warning system. It's an inexact science, underfunded to be sure. 

I'm not a writer. I'm just a person who senses connections where most see none. It's a great way to go through life.