Give me a memory of cold

Exercise #4

I remember what it was like to love winter, frozen toes inside thick snow boots, wet mittens, a red nose.  Suzy and I would spend days outside her yellow house just up the hill from the creek.  We'd slide down through the trees, land on hard, slick ice, and skate in our boots.  The ice never froze in the smooth, perfect way of skating rinks, but in jagged lumps punctuated with broken sticks and rocks.

The creek was our battle field and our home.  There were places beneath the trees where roots stuck up through the snow and we'd dig in, building a nest, proving you could stay warm before the melt.  We dared ourselves, taking off socks and gloves, feeling the cold prickle against our skin.  We'd redden, and swear it didn't hurt.  We'd lie down and try to sleep, then jump up, a new battle on the other side of the creek.

Don't touch the bottom, we'd warn, grabbing branches to keep ourselves aloft.  I was the clumsy one, never coordinated or graceful, always heavier inside my bones.  I'd skitter through the trees, scrambling to keep myself in Suzy's graces, following her until I finally lost her scent.

Wanting--with love to Lorrie Moore

Growing up all you ever wanted was talent, to be big, to know you were somebody doing something important.  Kids really do believe they can be anything.

You have to face up to reality though, life ain't gonna put you on a stage.  You have to want, kiddo, bigger than anything.  Then, you have to beg.

"Mommy, can I take ballet lessons?"

"We'll see."

Later...

"Mrs. Beard, I might take ballet lessons!"

"Really?"

"Uh-huh! My mom said she'll see."


A few years later...

"Mom, can I take viola lessons?"

"Now why do you want to do that?"

"Jenny isn't taking lessons anymore and the teacher said I could take her place.  It would be free and I can use her viola."

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's too much noise.  We live in an apartment."

"Please?"

"No. Now drop it." 


If begging doesn't work try something else.

You adore music, how it rushes in and yanks away at you, pummels your senses, throws you into some place you haven't been for years and wrestles you to just shut up and listen already.  You wanted that for yourself, begged for lessons, borrowed books from the library, listened deeply trying to pull out those few hidden secrets that would finally help you make sense of a sheet of music.

It never came.

So you thought this, you thought, some people learn music by ear, I could just start writing it down myself, to the tune in my head.  Sure, that might work.

What happened instead was this.

Right here.  This thing you're writing now.  This is the music in your head, the tune you can't get out.  Whatever happens in your life, this thing, this writing is what holds you together.  You hate it.  And you need it.

The first time you read out loud to a crowd of people...well, that was something, not at all what you expected.  Not at all.  But you're pretty sure it was equal to what you would have experienced had you played your first concert piano solo.

You're certain that night and the people lurking in that drafty, smoke-infested cafe and your shaking and stuttering are all going with you to the great nut house in the sky. 

So whatever it is--whatever circles you spin around in, whatever goals you meet or fail at, whatever success you hype yourself up about--there's always this at the end. 



Read Lorrie Moore How to Become a Writer 

Roots

"Are you Catholic or Mormon?" Apparently, people only procreate for God. The answer is no. My parents just had a lot of kids. So it was 1975 and there was no farm work to be done in the city--they liked having babies, I guess. Mom isn't exactly forthcoming on any sort of reasoning here and Dad's only comment that I know of was, "Seems like they were all surprises back then."

Yeah, okay, so my parents never learned anything about biology in school and never had to take a health class about the miraculous of the body. Seems it couldn't have been too much of a surprise after, say, number 2? Regardless of why Bev and Chuck multiplied 3 to the 3rd power, here I am writing to tell you all about what a crazy idea it was. Welcome to Penny Jar: A heads up on being at the tail end.

This is my second blog and probably the more focused of the two. I have only been at this a week so far, but my enthusiasm should make up for the other shortcomings (most of which I am probably not aware of). My goal is to use Penny Jar as a catalyst for memoir writing. I have been threatening my family with a book for years and I believe this is the momentum I need.

There is a wonderful English professor at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater named Alison Townsend. I studied under her for a course in Creative Nonfiction several years ago. She had us make a list of "The stories that you keep coming back to." Despite the fact that there are so many other things I would like to write about that don't involve my family, the story I keep coming back to is this: I am the youngest of 9 children. My parents divorced when I was seven. Nobody has ever called me an "accident" to my face, but I think the fact that I was born 9 years after my closest sister speaks for itself.

She has called me, "Afternoon Delight."