this identity
really
until recently...
today's quote from the website,
Advice to Writers,
is perfect:
There Are No Rules
There are no rules. It’s amazing how willing people are to tell you that you aren’t a real writer unless you conform to their clichés and their rules. My advice? Reject rules and critics out of hand. Define yourself. Do it your way. Make yourself the writer of your dreams.
ANNE RICE
And so, this morning
My 12 year old self is smiling
She writes poetry
My 17 year old self is smiling
She writes songs
and plays guitar
so writes music
My 21 year old self is smiling
She writes poetry
despite her art school Dean Lord's
objections
My 22 year old self is smiling
She writes
everywhere and on everything
napkins at the diner where she waitresses
scraps of paper while she
breastfeeds the baby
My 23 year old self is smiling
She writes feature articles
for a local weekly newspaper
because one professor in art school
believed she could write
and said deadline work
for ten years
would matter!
My 24 year old self is smiling
She writes news stories
and edits three weekly newspapers
She is a writer with gut and curiosity
She knows the power of print
(it was 1987!)
to make town, city and state
officials bleed information
they'd rather not tell
 |
Kyle and me, circa 1992,
just before the floor fell out from beneath our feet. |
My 30 year old self is smiling
and crying
this is the year I turned 30,
I know I said that already,
but listen,
I turned 30
had my second baby
and my father died
all in the span of four months
and I received a grant from
to publish the chapbook,
am I writer yet?
 |
| Cover art by Meg Harrison Young |
My 32 year old self is smiling
I received another grant
this one from
to write the curriculum
I know,
small audience, Dean Lord,
but fuck,
am I writer yet?
And now like a storytelling pro
I must stop to tell you
that I forgot
to mention something
in that room
we passed through
a little too quickly
my 23 year old self
wants to remind you
and me of
(Author and title list,
here.)
and now that we've paused
for a moment
my 42 year old self is beaming
about that piece published
in the anthology,
It was a long, long, long poem
entitled, with aspirations of regality
and possible inclusion in the next
version of the Christian Scriptures,
with parenthesis for Unitarians:
A Psalm (to God) in Six Stages.
My 43 year old self is smiling
hard
and
breathing in and out
She writes sermons
and delivers them
in front of people
on a weekly basis
in sanctuaries
(eventually from Boston to Flagstaff
from Bridgewater to Urbana)
and that year won
yep that guy!
 |
| Andrew, Kyle and me; Christmas 2015 |
And now,
right now,
My 54 year old self is laughing
just a little
for that girl
who wrote poems
in her journal
and imagined
never having to speak in front of anyone
except a gentle crowd
at a book signing
at which she would read
just a few poems
for that girl who
did
once
read poems
at a poetry slam
at her old high school
in her twenties
her body betraying
her fear
in shivers she could not shake
but she read,
she read
aloud
to that room of teenagers
and their teachers
and showed them all
especially herself
that yes, a Brockton girl
can do any thing
even if her guidance counselors
dissuade her from college
and suggest she has gone
way, way
beyond her raising!
Am I a writer yet?
My almost 55 year old self
says
Yes!
(This is the 50s baby! My midwife told me I'd be different once I moved through menopause...and right on schedule, I am reflecting on the past and contemplating the future - what I'll leave behind, what I've done. How about you?)
(A man, who eventually became a dear congregant, asked me last year after the first time he heard me preach: What do you call your preaching style? I said I didn't have a name for it. I asked what he would call my style. He said he didn't want to tell me. He said it might hurt my feelings. I said, go ahead. I can take it. He said, strident. I sat with that for a while. Eventually, he added, and I mean eventually, like months later, he said, you know I think now I'd say your sermons are provocative but I'm still stumped on the style. Thanks, I said. I would say, now that my style, of writing and delivery, is poetic. He smiled.)
I've started sorting the contents of the boxes that have been in storage since July 2014 when my husband and I left Massachusetts for Arizona. There are at least 30 of them. Thirty boxes of journals, books, art supplies, framed artwork and more!
