WordSisters

Author: Ellen Shriner

  • Yippee!!! My Book Is Done!

    I just pressed “Save” and declared it done.

    Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 12.06.26 AMIt seems like a lightening bolt should fork across the sky. Or the aurora borealis should glow tonight especially for me. But nothing like that happened. If I’d ever pictured this moment, I might have thought it would call for Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” or champagne. But instead I’m just quietly pleased. And tomorrow I’ll get up and go to work.

    Perhaps a more accurate statement is that the book may not be done, but I’m done with it.  I have written it to the best of my ability, and now I need to be done with this project begun in 1997. Wow.  Until I did the math I didn’t realize that this memoir (working title: Colette’s Legacy) has been part of my life for 16 years. First it was notes about a memory I couldn’t shake, next a sketchy first draft I set aside for years, and since 2009 (drafts 2, 3 and 4), I’ve made a lot of room for it in my life. I’ve worked on it nearly every weekend and on many of my days off. I’ve taken classes, worked with writing coaches, and shared it with my ever-so-patient and supportive writing group.

    I’m proud of myself for finishing it, but I’m also relieved. In the coming weeks, it may feel odd not to have it occupying my thoughts and my time. But right now, I feel so much lighter.

    After this last revision, the book is definitely better. But is it good enough? I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore. Some days, I don’t even like it. Other days, I think, hmmm. This is pretty good—better than I remembered. I do know that it’s as good as I can make it. Colette’s Legacy is a workplace coming-of-age story set in 1979. My memoir recalls a time when combining a relationship with a career wasn’t a given, and it honors the way Baby Boom women changed the world of work and family. What I don’t know is if anyone (besides 20 or so friends and family members) will be interested in reading it.

    But whether or not to pursue publication is a decision for another day.

    Today, my book is done and I’m really happy about that.

  • Loud, Proud and Golden

    Why would anybody practice from 8:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night for 11 days in sweltering August heat before school starts (practice music, field drills, practice music, field drills, practice music, field drills, eat, sleep, and do it again the next day)?

    Why would you lug around a heavy instrument—sometimes running, sometimes marching, a lot of times dancing—two hours a day, five days a week, and eight hours on game days?

    Half-time
    Half-time

    Why would you get up at 4:30 a.m. on a Saturday so you can practice at 6:00 a.m.; perform in the parking lot for a dozen tailgaters at 8:30; join 319 of your best friends to sing, dance and play in front of a couple hundred people at 10:20; perform again in front of a thousand or so football fans at 10:40; play, march, and dance some more for a crowd that isn’t paying attention because half of them are leaving the stands to get a beer and a hot dog; and then take the field again at the end of the game to sing and play music while the fans are leaving?

    Post-game--still going strong
    Post-game–still going strong

    Why would you wear an itchy wool suit with short pants and a goofy hat with a plume when it’s 60/88/33 degrees and sunny/humid/sleeting and chant stuff like, “Eat ‘em raw. Eat up the (opposing team name goes here). Eat up the guts. Spit out the bones. March on.”

    Because of the sheer joy of playing music you like with people you like.

    Because of the pleasure of getting 320 souls to move in unison and perfectly pivot a giant University of Minnesota “M” on a fake grass field.Screen Shot 2013-09-26 at 9.30.51 PM

    Because it feels good to be part of something bigger than yourself.

    Being in marching band isn’t exactly about school spirit, although that plays a role.

    My favorite band geek
    My favorite band geek

    My favorite marching band geek tells me that after spending 500 hours a season with these people (marching, playing, hanging out, sharing a house, marching, playing) they’re your family. You may not like every one of them all of the time (and a few you won’t like ever, at all) but you love and depend on them. You’ve been through spat camp and freezing post-Thanksgiving games and bowl game trips with them. You’ve learned countless life lessons in band. He says, “There’s very little in life that’s quite the same as band and very little that will give me as much as this band has given me.”

  • Trying on a New Lifestyle for Size

    My husband and I have been peeping in strangers’ closets. Opening drawers. Pulling aside shower curtains. Wandering in backyards. That’s what house hunters do.

    Now that our nest is nearly empty, imagining a new urban life is fun. Can we embrace alleys? Funky one-car, unattached garages? Being able to see into our neighbors’ windows just across the way? Hear their TVs? I don’t know, but we’re trying to find out.

    We’ll definitely enjoy being closer to the lakes and rivers that the Twin Cities are known for. Walking to neighborhood restaurants and coffee shops sounds good, too.

    But it’s odd to step into these intimate spaces and glimpse the telling details of a stranger’s life:

    One house has a small bedroom has a single bed with a flower power bedspread. A teal formal dress hangs from the closet door. Inside are classic black Converse sneakers. What does this teenage girl dream of when she lies in that bed—the homecoming dance? Wandering around a college campus in those sneakers?

    In another house, there are two much loved cats. They have cat beds, food bowls, and water dishes upstairs and downstairs, so the kitties won’t have to go far for a drink and a snack. In the living room, two middle-aged women with their arms around each other smile out from what appears to be an engagement photo.

    The next place we visit is across the river. The front door handle comes off in our hands and the backyard is full of weeds. The carpet is old and shabby and the bathroom has mismatched tiles. A motorized scooter sits in a corner of the kitchen. This place is sadder than the first two and looks like the owner was too ill or too tired to keep up with maintenance and yard work.

    Another place we see has great landscaping and a newly remodeled kitchen and bath. It looks as if the family has out-grown the house. Upstairs is a pink little girl’s room with a large girl-sized decal of a purple My Little Pony on the wall.  She has her whole life ahead of her, but it will be in a new house.

    We too have a whole new life ahead of us—maybe in a year or two it will be in one of these neighborhoods.  For now, we’re just trying on this lifestyle for size.

    Big porch

    Stucco w red door