I was
asked, recently, by an attractive woman in a long skirt, a blazer and high
heels, this question that has dragged me into adulthood: So, what do you do? My
inner-teen groaned—I breathe and eat, sleep, play, make love, you know, all the
same things you do, Lady!—while this other part of me, still a stranger to
myself, was flattered. She did not have children, and women like her don’t
usually ask that question of women like me; they see a baby bouncing on my hip
and pulling at my hair, and streaking me with drool and spit-up, and I feel
good because I had time to put on a clean shirt and brush my hair and I know
that I am the image of every reason they chose a career.
We were at
a dinner party with some of my husband’s colleagues. The hosts had a beautiful
home in the historic district, with cedar shake siding and a red door. As we
walked through the front gate—white, picket, of course—and up the manicured
walk to the front door, I was struck by a strong sense of ineptitude. My father
had taken me to these types of dinner parties. I had admired the fresh-cut
flowers on the streak-free end tables. There were no sticky children living in
houses like these, but I was with my father so I belonged. Now I was here with
my husband, a man who does not own his own home, whose wife does not cut
flowers or match furniture or shop for long skirts and high heels.
“I’m a
writer,” I said to the woman. She was impressed, but did not ask for more
details, and I did not offer any. So now, here I am, trying and failing to fill
a blank page with the type of words I have not tried to write in years. I am a
writer. I have an education in writing, and a degree to prove it. I was
twenty-two when I got that degree, with visions of smoky rooms and type
writers, and I said I didn't care if I starved I would never sell out. But the
reality is, I took the first job that paid me to do what I love.
On one of
my last days as a student, I sat in the office of one of my professors. I had
doubts, I told her, and now that school was over I had no idea what to do. I
had a boyfriend who was too old for me, and maybe that boyfriend had a drinking
problem. I had a dog. I had a really strange family. And I had already written
about all of them. “You’ll be a good writer,” she reassured me, “but you need
to go out and experience life.”
So I did.
Well, first I experienced death. There are so many ways to die. I've never
written about any of them.
Tomorrow, I
always say. Tomorrow I will try again to be a real writer. And then work comes in
and the baby cuts a tooth and the furnace quits working. And we pay our bills
but only just and then the end of the day comes and all I want is to sleep
through the night.
It’s been
five years of blank pages. And now you ask for thirty days? At the end, I guess
I say that I’ll try.
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