Photo: A.M. Moscoso
Is it really okay not to be like everyone else?
Is it really alright if you wear the wrong clothes?
Is it really acceptable to be who you really are?
I’m thinking that the answer is no.
I’m also thinking I’m fine with that.
What make a good day off?
Do you need to accomplish a goal? Go somewhere cool? Sleep to much eat to much?
Why is this an issue for me?
Before he died my friend and I talked about writing.
To be exact, he told me he was dying and then he told me he had about a year if he was lucky and then we talked about writing.
As a writer and in his conversations he didn’t toss off clever phrases and he didn’t put little spins on the language. He didn’t play with the language to impress.
What had was the gift ot undertand people. He understood how we were connected together through our experiences and friendships. He could map them and tell stories about them.
He could have been another F Scott Fitzgerald I think.
I was not in a position at the time to do much writing. But what I was still able to do was face death. I hate death and I won’t let it chase me away from being near the ones I love who I am soon to lose or have lost. So sure, I can talk about the future with a dying man.
So like I said we were talking about writing.
He wanted to write the next great American Novel and I said I was writing a story about Werewolves because I wasn’t brave enough to write about Racism. I told him I didn’t think it would fly because every time I brought it up I heard the same thing. ” I’m not racist. I hate everybody. Racism doesn’t exist anymore.”
” You know who says that? ” I asked my friend.
My friend, who was a big burly Scotsman who could tell one hell of a good story said. ” Sure. Racists. The ones with their heads up their…”
” Yeah well. I’ve already been tracked by Homeland Security and harassed by White Supremacists . It’s not fun. I’d like to avoid it in the future. So. I’m going Rod Serling and I’m going to write about Werewolves instead.”
” So what’s the problem? You tell a good story about monsters.”
” I think my problem is it should be about racists. Human ones. And the story isn’ t going to let me make it into something else. So I set it aside.”
” Don’t. Write it Anita. Whatever it takes. Just write it.”
My friend died a few months later.
I am still trying to finish that story.
Because I can.
And I won’t stop until I stop.
amm
Much like the rest of the population I moved to Facebook Land a few years ago, and I think that it’s no coincidence that when I did that I stopped blogging.
At the time I thought it was ok because I could do more ‘serious’ writing off-line which sounded good but it didn’t happen that way.
I got caught up in the world of chit-chat, miscommunications, talking cats and looking at pictures of people’s dinners.I knew I was in trouble when I started to think that looking pictures of someone else’s cheesecake was cool.
What I didn’t take into account was that blogging was what I did to keep my skills up- it was my daily writing practice. And in doing that I had to think in complete sentences. As much as I love LOL Cats, you can’t exactly communicate like a human adult let alone write like one when your world is all about quips and tweets coming from the cute faces of kittens, puppies and in some cases infants.
I’ll be honest, I got some enjoyment when I got yelled at- on line– by people because they couldn’t flame posts on my Facebook page.
I saw a fire, I put it out. What can I say.
I was told I was interfering with their ‘freedom of speech’ and that I shouldn’t be stifling open conversations. I should be encouraging it.
I’ve learned something from blogging- oh and a tad bit about our ” Freedoms” because so many people were interpreting their ‘freedoms’ in this area incorrectly and the real answers were there out in public for anyone to see.
Sad to say I can F*&@! up your “freedom of speech” on my Facebook page because it’s MY Facebook page. And if you want to have an open vibrant conversation, get your off your heiney or computer or phone and go have one.I consider myself a force of nature but I couldn’t stop you from doing that.
I’m pretty sure that when you restrain someone against their will it’s ACTUALLY against the law.
So when I got messages about comments or posts disappearing from MY Facebook page my simple answer was: If you think that’s mean you should see what my editor friends do to real writers. And they get paid to do it. I wish I got paid for doing that to some of my flamers but no.
I did it for free.
I chalk it up to a cheap thrill.
” But nobody will “like” the stuff you post on your page…they won’t care what you think. They won’t look at it. No one will know what your opinions are. Don’t you want to be heard? I was asked when I refused to let my mode of communication be shamelessly used like the town floozy.
Well.
Before I moved to Facebook people DID.
And then I let Talking Dogs do it for me and anyone else who showed up on my newsfeed.
What kind of writer does that I started asking myself.
I guess we all know the answer to that.
It’s been fun, but it’s time to get real.
So Let’s Do It.
There’s this story about choice- and the choice presented in the story is do you feed the good wolf or the bad wolf.
I feed them both because they’re both important to me, I need them both.
I just happen to love one more than the other.
When I was in Vegas last month one of the Casinos was giving this car away as a prize.
You didn’t have to play at the tables for a chance to win, you had to play a slot machine.
So everyday I was there I would play the machine for the car ONCE.
One spin, one chance, that was it.
It would have been easy to put my money into that machine and play it but that wouldn’t have been as much fun.
What was fun was that walk around the block to that Casino to that machine to place my fifty cent bet to see if I would win that beautiful car. I could see myself driving it home, could see myself wearing my pink cat’s eyes sunglasses ( though I knew I’d have to buy the red ones with the white polka dots to match my awesome new car when I got home.)
I seriously had a good time trying to win that car every day.
Sad to say there was no moment of glory, no happy ending, I didn’t win the car.
But I did have fun on that walk to the casino. I loved taking that ONE spin ( which when you think about it is EXACTLY how life works…you get one spin right? So enjoy yourself )
I bought the new sunglasses anyway.
And yes. Yes they are awesome.
I finally broke down and got a cellphone a couple of years ago.
Up until that point, I didn’t use them, and I wouldn’t borrow them to make a call because I couldn’t figure out how to talk into it the right way. Above all I could not understand how people built lives and relationships around text messages.
Really now, text messages?
I love to write and I do it a lot, and I do enough to appreciate good writing (because God knows I try everyday to do it myself ) when I see it and I am here to tell you that text messages for the most part are lousy writing.
But that doesn’t stop people from arguing, having sex or debating over matters of life and death while thumbing literary masterpieces like
AWGTHTGTTA Are We Going To Have To Go Through This Again
AWHFY Are We Having Fun Yet?
AWLTP Avoiding Work Like The Plague
BTD Bored To Death
BTDT Been There Done That
Today I forgot my phone- and instead of going back for it I was phoneless.
I must say it was liberating.
I didn’t have something on my desk humming, dinking, clicking or blasting out the theme to Doctor Who seemingly whenever the heck it felt like it.
I’d compare how I felt for the most part to the old days when ourkids got packed off to Grandpa and Grandma’s for the weekend.
And much like when we would walk in the door at the end of the visit, there was my phone packed with ( ergh ) texts, phone messages, notifications from Facebook and Pinterest all crying out to me for attention.
I was thinking to myself maybe I should leave it at home more often not take it with me and turn it off, but leave it on my bookshelf.
Only…only…today on my bus ride into work I was looking around and almost everyone around me was on their phone and oh heaven forbid you flip the pages of your book to loud because you could be interrupting a texting session or put someone in danger of not crushing that candy or having their condo eaten by a monster.
So on today’s commute as I considered making my life phoneless I thought of aTwilight Zone story called The Obsolete Man
When I was a kid that story scared me, as an adult it doesn’t seem like such a scary impossible story. It seems very possible
And I have to admit, when I’m out with friends or at the symphony or shopping I’ll pull my phone out, you know so I’ll blend in.
So that I don’t become Obsolete or find myself separated from the heard.
Last year there was a shooting at a Men’s Homeless Shelter down the street from where I work.
Shortly after the police arrived ( Danger or no Danger when it’s lunch time I lunch ) I was on my way out to grab a bite and stopped to ask on of the Shelter’s clients what happened and he told me.
I learned two very interesting things in that conversation:
The first thing is, it was a surprise to everyone there that a Homeless guy owned something as valuable as a gun. Because for the most part they don’t own anything that could get a cold hard cash for.
The second thing is, if people see a woman who looks somewhat yuppified talking to a cadaverous looking homeless guy their first reaction is to throw themselves between you and the Homeless guy like one of those soldiers from the black and white war movies who throw themselves on top of live grenades to save their friends.
Did I feel like I was in danger?
No.
The only danger I feel in that area is that I’m going to be wiped out by a bus because some of those drivers don’t understand the concept of RED LIGHTS and Bicycle riders who ride up my back and put me in danger of getting a bike wheel embedded in my butt.
Either one of those things has got to hurt.
Now.
A month or so later I was in Port Townsend and me and my husband were on the way to our car after a dinner when I saw this little old lady toddling around on – I kid you not the most gigantic platform shows in the world.
Gene Simmons from KISS would have brained her for those shoes.
Anyway. She asked for help- she couldn’t find her car.
So I asked what kind of car she drove ( which was scary because the little old lady in platform shoes and the expensive coat with the even more expensive broach tacked to the front of it said smelled like she may have downed every single bottle of Gin in town ) and she said in that careful way really, really drunk people talk so you don’t know they’re really, really drunk:
” I think it’s a Mustang “
” Okay.” I said letting it slide because it was a rental and maybe I thought she had just picked it up.
” And it’s gray.”
” That’s helpful I said ” as we began to search for her maybe gray Mustang while my husband went to get our car in the next lot over.
AFter a few minutes of looking around and we ended up alone in the corner of the lot she leaned over and slurred in my ear ” To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I actually drove it here.”
So there I was, in a corner of a parking lot alone with a drunk old woman in giant platform shoes and I’m afraid because …hell…I was in alone with a drunk woman in giant platform shoes who couldn’t remember if she’d driven her car that evening or not.
I looked wildly around and spotted a gray car. ” Hey there’s your car I said pointing.
When she turned to look at what I was pointing at I took off.
So what freaked me out enough to leave some poor old drunk woman in the corner of a parking lot where she probably spent the next half hour trying to open up someone else’s car?
Because I was in a strange town, with a strange woman who couldn’t remember whether she had driven her car earlier that evening.
And she was bombed out of her skull.
I didn’t feel safe.
Simple as that.
So I saved myself.
I’d like to say I was more noble. Helpful. Caring.
On the other hand…when you think about it I was.
So over the last year and a half, my dogs died, two of my friends died, my Dad died and I stopped writing.
Need I say depression stepped in?
I guess I could have written through the pain, shared my experience and turned it into an Epic novel like ” The Stand ” by Stephen King .
But I didn’t.
I went to work and I went to sleep in more ways than one.
And one day I just stepped up and reached out and lo and behold I found out I had an entire life out there. Friends, adventures, a wonderful, beautiful family and Gelato…I discovered Gelato ( thank you Colleen ) and I discovered the joys of shopping ( thank you Linda ) and makeup counters ( word Sherry ). The Residents at Riversleigh Manor ( smiley face here ). My pen pal turned e-mail turned FB friend in Scotland ( Hey Heather) was even there .
In a way it was like everyone appeared as if by magic when I really needed them the most.
But the truth is, they were there all along- with the rest of my life, just waiting for me to reclaim it.
And I did.
The last thing I’ve returned to is my writing.
That’s when I knew I was ready to be me- the new and improved me again.
I have no idea ( yet ) what me and my new outlook on the world will do with this wonderful gift
but I’m excited to find out.
I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty great.
Irregular Bones 