Letter

I learned to write, and enjoy writing, through letters. Not the examined, graded school reports, self conscious and pointless jumping-jacks of putting one word after the other. I had the joy of telling my tale to a grateful, distant, gentle reader. My oldest brother got my first drawn missive, in all the colors crayons came in, when I was in my first year of school. When Dave was off in the Air Force, in Thailand, Arizona, England, Texas - I wrote of my day and miseries. For Bill, off to college, then to the commune and all over Europe, epistles into the ether.

One cousin became a pen pal, as we vied to outwit each other, writing in folds and circles, codes and mirrors. From Kalkaska, I wrote to an acquaintance who would become my first dysfunctional boyfriend. The Army gave me more stories to tell, and I wrote to everyone with an address. Long rambling streams of consciousness and complaint, as well, I hope, of insight. I sent many more than ever were delivered to me.

Email solved my perpetual problem - if I were not away from home, of writing a letter, not finishing it before it seemed like old news, and never getting it into an envelope, nor sent. One step, no waiting, no voice mail messages awkwardly ended. And Moira and I, on such different schedules, grew to really know each other, not just like, not just work together, by dint of this new media.

And for this same reason, which is to say my dear friend, I began to write my essays. As a way to answer her questions about my fraught life with less of the tedium. Telling my story, without getting sick of the sound of my own voice. I started a little blog. She was my reader.

Writing a book was never more than a passing fantasy when I was small. My love for books lay in reading, as many as I could tuck under my arm or hide in my desk, the three book library limit a frustrating constraint. My respect for the knowledge and experience of a novelist, to create worlds in my mind, meant an ambition packed away. An adult sized dream I vaguely hoped I might grow into, someday.

But Moira urged me to write more. Uncritical, amused, interested, she egged me on. And others came, and read, and encouraged. So I wrote more. I think I may have lived an interesting, and attentive enough life, to actually consider writing seriously. Hopefully amusingly. Nanowrimo coming in November.

It's all your fault.

Coming soon,

Hamster ball in the Library.
"Nobody likes a blonde in a hamster ball." - Veronica Mars.