WordSisters

Category: Memories

  • The Blue Notebook

    I wrote my first novel when I was 10, in a royal blue spiral notebook I’m sure was meant for my math homework. The story was what you might expect of someone that age. The protagonist was an angst-ridden fifth grader whose family didn’t understand her.

    I have other notebooks from those days, mostly filled with bad rhyming poetry and rants about my sisters. But the blue notebook is gone. I think, but I don’t know for certain, that I destroyed it in a fit of frustration. This was long before Anne Lamott wrote Bird by Bird, and I understood the value and necessity of a shitty first draft. I just thought I was a bad writer because I couldn’t resolve the plot in a meaningful way. I was 10.

    Since then, I’ve written pages and pages, too many words to count. More bad, unpublished poetry. An op-ed about athletes getting more recognition than scholars that was published in the Midland Daily News when I was in high school. A speech that won an award from Optimist International.

    After high school I channeled my writing energy into professional writing: news releases, promotional copy, employee newsletters. I don’t remember much creative prose in the early days of my career, but most of my jobs involved writing.

    Years later, driving home from a family reunion in Barnesville, Minnesota, my two kids and my mom strapped in the back of our minivan, I decided to go to graduate school for creative writing. There I became the writer I always dreamed I’d be.

    I spent the next seven years learning about the craft I’ve loved since I was 10. I was introduced to Anne Lamott, Joan Didion, Janet Burroway, and a host of others who helped me learn that writing is a process and a passion. Sometimes the words flow easily and land on the page perfectly formed. Most of the time, however, it’s a wrestling match, moving words around until they strike the perfect pose or are pinned to the page in beautiful submission.

    Now, two decades later, I turn to Julia Cameron, who encourages me more than any of the others to just write. Every day. In a notebook. Longhand.

    ***

    I go to my local office supply store (some still exist post-pandemic, although my favorite has closed) and shop for two notebooks. I pick a college-ruled notebook for my daily pages. I want a different color for the novel I’m going to write. This will be my third novel if you count the abandoned manuscript from childhood. I rifle through the messy piles in the bins of the store searching for the perfect one. I stack the notebooks neatly back on the shelves, turning them right side out until at the bottom of the bin I find it. I can’t say why it’s “the one,” but it is.

    I clutch the two notebooks to my chest and head to the cash register. I lay the two side-by-side on the counter, marveling at the possibilities. The black cover will be for my morning pages. And the other—the one with the vaguely familiar royal blue cover—will hold the novel I’m about to begin.

  • Green Hush Puppies

    The Hush Puppies the salesman brought out were grayish green suede. In the 1960s, Hush Puppies weren’t ‘geek chic’ like Doc Martens or Uggs. They were shoes suitable for an old lady, not a 9-year-old. 

    The Hush Puppies’ black crepe soles were quiet, but I wanted the click of leather heels that made the wearer sound important, grown-up. The suede was soft and comfortable on my toes—not that I cared. I craved shiny brown penny loafers like my 4thgrade classmates wore. Unfortunately, my AA-width feet slopped around in those B-width loafers, and they slapped my heels with every step. The shoe salesman and Mom ruled them out. 

    The idea of wearing those terrible shoes brought tears to my eyes, and I might have begged for a reprieve. Mom was sympathetic but unyielding. I had to have a pair of school shoes that fit properly.

    Shoe shopping got easier by 7th grade, when I could wear women’s shoes, which offered a bigger selection. I’ve inherited narrow feet from my mother, and all of her life, she’d faced the same difficulty with finding attractive shoes that fit. Mom and I both trod the path of cute but cruel shoes and endured blisters and corns.

    When she was in her 80s, Mom succumbed to wearing plain sensible shoes for most occasions—big white sneakers or boring taupe lace-ups for everyday wear. She hated them but her feet hurt. With dress shoes, she did her best to work a compromise between style and comfort. 

    Over the years, I have spent hundreds of dollars—guilt-free—on stylish shoes and sandals to make it up to that sad 9-year-old and delight my grown self. Nonetheless, my closet is full of failed experiments. All too often I’ve discovered pairs which seemed fine but hurt my feet if I needed to really walk, not just stroll into a restaurant or party.

    I’m still trying to thread the needle: find shoes which aren’t too ugly but meet my feet’s many picky requirements. However, during a recent vacation my feet hurt every day. So, I bought some brown leather lace-ups reminiscent of Mom’s. I’ve got places to go. I need comfortable shoes to get there. At least they aren’t green suede Hush Puppies.

  • Letting Go Gracefully, Without Regrets

    Contemplating my 50th high school reunion got me thinking about friendships, acquaintanceships, and people I’m no longer in touch with.

    I’m a person who stays connected. I make the calls, send the emails, arrange the visits, and keep up the connections. For years. But I wonder, When should I simply loosen my grip and let a friendship or acquaintanceship slide? Couldn’t I say to myself, We were friends for a certain moment in time and now that time has passed? It’s OK to let go gracefully without regrets.

    I think I’ve done that with my high school friends. 

    I’m mildly curious about a few people. There was the cute redheaded guy I daydreamed about in math class. We ran in the same circles, but never dated and with time I became infatuated with other guys. He later became an architect and developer and now is one of the wealthiest members of the class. 

    I might enjoy talking with a brainy basketball star who was a good friend for a few years. She sat near me in several classes because our Catholic high school seated students alphabetically. However, even during college while I still lived in Toledo, we’d grown apart.

    A dark-haired acquaintance who had a big voice and an even bigger laugh also comes to mind. We hung around together during school musicals—she was a performer and I was the costumer.

    I’m curious about another dark-haired classmate in my advanced English class who became a nationally known journalist. We ran in different crowds (hers cooler than mine), but it would be fun to talk politics with her now, except she isn’t attending either. 

    I felt a pang to see a close girlhood friend listed among the deceased. We parted in 6th grade when she moved to a different neighborhood and got interested in boys. I was still shy and awkward then, not ready to date. We’d let go long ago, but I was sorry to read she had been in poor health for years and was no longer married.

    A friend who went to a different high school said her 50th reunion was the last one she’ll attend, because future reunions will involve classmates needing walkers and talk of who’s in the early stages of Alzheimer disease. 

    Her insight bolstered my decision to skip my 50th reunion. I’d rather remember my classmates as we were—young, high-spirited, and barely aware of life’s harder realities.