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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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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. |
| I don't know that I am protecting anything more by placing it here, rather than on Facebook, but since I remember FB terms originally stating that ANYTHING POSTED BELONGS TO THEM, I at least feel better in my own blog space. This is a bit of an exercise, a promise I made to myself and my therapist today. This particular Monday is my dad's birthday. He died this year in August, and besides my sister's birthday plus Thanksgiving (some years they are the same), his birthday will be the first date that I thought might have more to it in relation to coping with grief. It's not like we usually made a fuss. A pie is the preferred special item that comes to mind. Since I lived closest to him -- it was easy to be the perpetrator of the spoiling. And of course a card, although I have a spotty history even with my most beloved friends and family members actually accomplishing my intent. So, marking this day, since it has not been touched by tears over missing him, I am leaning into where this emotional divide might be crossed. I came across a photo that my Dad held in his FB pictures. A post of mine for almost exactly 3 years ago. I sent him some postcard poetry, and I took a snapshot of it. This allowed me today to reread what I had written to him. Today I feel like I should rewrite it. But I like these lines: You remain the young father of a drag-slap and yappity-yap…. Where our feet have passed – dear father – means less than what our ears still do. I am thinking the rest of it is crap, but this is a nugget, and I want to retitle it too, and preferably finish it before the end of the year. The title instead of, "Journey of a thousand soles" would be transformed to, "Listen to the journey of a thousand and two soles" He was thrifty enough, I could imagine he has only had one pair of shoes (resoled) and I, the drag-slap cripple has squandered a thousand shoes over my lifetime. This in and of it self makes me a bit sad. Still, I have written just this, and it does not compare to the tears I did shed today thinking of the high school students returning to Saugus in California today. How I am much more attached to the past than the present. I cannot avoid my own present, but I guess for now I will still avoid the tears for the more personal tragedies of this year. |
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