The Journey to Write

As a young child who could not put a book down, I knew then that words were my friends. They literally transformed a shy, extremely backward child into faraway lands, or crazy places such as Roald Dahl's Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, or in later years, Are You there God It's Me Margaret. Letters, words, reading simply calmed my soul, and enlightened my spirit. To this day-give me a book to read that I can hold, smell, and flip through the pages to divert attention from a weary day, a snowy day, or pretty much any day.

Grade school grammar, diagramming sentences, spelling bees, and eventually High School Literature are the classes that I sat up straight, and listened. Being a gawky, tall five foot nine girl in ninth grade means it took a lot for that feat to be accomplished. Mrs. Danielson was a wonderful, calm, but stern teacher who matter-of-factly told us that obvious titles were not acceptable, and even considered grammar mistakes "swear words" that allowed us to remember, and learn to become writers. To memorize tools that gave us the red light to create.

Mr. Ryan was my college prep literature teacher who taught things such as brainstorming, and building on from these crazy jumble of thoughts that could get a story going- go on from that sentence, if you will. Mr. Revezzo was another fabulously calm teacher who took this shy girl straight into speech class, and encouraged the crazy idea that writing about ballet, and George Balanchine was a worthy subject to be introduced to a class of High School Juniors.

Aside from these words, letters, teachers, books, and basic passion there are the journals. Too many years to count are the stacks of colorful journals throughout my life to record childhood, adulthood, motherhood, marriage. The privilege of friendship, the questions of politics, and the fear of disasters. My pen, or pencil to record feelings connected to the events of childbirth, old boyfriends, or maybe even the colors of the sunset. The smells of a cigarette that my long, lost Uncle David who was visiting in the living room in my childhood home, or the first time I saw my firstborn son peer up into the world. These all mattered, and writing was the only true way to express these things.

Mom passed away, and she was a writer. Fear kept her from sharing it with all of us four siblings. We now have greeting cards-which are priceless that we all received, but now stories. True she gave us verbal stories, but as an adult when she took a writing class the professor exclaimed that she had talent. Could it have been fear of starting, of failure, or some other reason that she did not continue her stories?

Circle back to myself, and the fear of writing stories on the internet. Who really wants to hear them? Who really wants to know what life was like in the years previous- in a world before Covid-19? There probably are a few stories that can be told. This journey begins now. The time for fear is gone, and we really do have to challenge ourselves in order to feed the world what makes us immortal. Stories are unique to each and everyone of us. The times we have been surviving have been relentlessly challenging, but Americans are resilient, savvy, and smart.

The time to be happy is now, and having witnessed the experiences of hospital life during Covid-19 there are many stories to tell. From families saying goodbye to loved ones to the wonderful sight of a patient finally coming out of a Covid-19 ICU, and go home to live life to the absolute fullest that they possible are able.

And so, waking up every day to realize that this life is a life to be lived as if we may never wake up tomorrow, we have stories...so many stories, and a platform to share. Let the stories begin