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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/blog/walkinbird/day/11-21-2019
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Rated: 18+ · Book · Experience · #930577
Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins
It Hurts When I Stop Talking


Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting.

Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script.

My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier.

Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally.

“I will.”

But, I didn’t.

Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was.

Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog.
November 21, 2019 at 2:29pm
November 21, 2019 at 2:29pm
#970151
I know what I used to love about school...all levels of school...there was challenge, and the opportunity to share, speak, write or draw without too big a fear of lasting judgment. The best unknown when you are young is that this process is occurring. THAT IS THE BEAUTY OF GETTING OLD and looking back: reviewing one's actions, pleasures, successes and failures.

I got triggered by something I read today -- starting with the Letters to the Editor, and then back to the original Opinion piece -- an article in the paper I work for about a Hanford, CA woman, allegedly a habitual meth user, being charged with murder by the D.A. due to the stillbirth of her latest child, a son. It didn't happen until I began writing a compassionate response that I even knew myself, my past self that was fiery and opinionated in college, one that was informed by many courses and discussions in Women's Studies.

This is the article
:https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-17/baby-born-dead-meth-make-a-murderer}

And this is my comment left in support of and after the hardened, negative responses to the Editorial Board's view.

Now there are additional published responses rejecting the Editorial Board's opinion here, on top of the comments listed. I read the Board's main point as the slippery slope of interpreting the law to the detriment of women, when that was not why "fetus" was added to the law.

No one has addressed the general disregard of her healthcare providers (did she have any?), nor the full disregard of Ms. Becker's sexual partner(s). This charge of murder seems like a call for a stoning. Does no one see that skew and the injustice? The 21st Century is much darker than has been imagined -- particularly for women. I cannot fathom how anyone of either sex could leap to the charge of murder without deep questioning and clear-eyed viewing of this punitive bias She is so very young, and seemingly not in a location nor circumstance that empowers her whatsoever. May she have many step to her defense.


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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/blog/walkinbird/day/11-21-2019