... a picture of a tree
I
remember being told in high school that I was a good writer. It completely
caught me off guard. I must have been a junior, I believe. I remember being the only one in the classroom, so I must have gone by her class before or after
school. I was absent the day prior and was going over the things I missed. I
remember her pulling out a partial roll of Girl Scout cookies from her desk and
giving them to me.
“We
had a party yesterday, and you missed it. But I saved you something.”
I
didn’t even know she liked me to be honest, or that she even noticed me. I was
painfully quiet and beyond shy. I freaked out any time I had to talk in class.
I hated high school, really. All of it. I wanted to drop out. My attendance
involved being ridiculously absent. I was all around miserable with my life and
school only made everything feel worse. (It's interesting to see how long depression has played a role in my life, way before I ever realized it.)
So
her words and kind gesture were so unexpected. We talked over a paper I had
written. She loved the pieces of stories I told. I had a gift for imagery. She
could see the scenes that I wrote so clearly. She encouraged me to write more.
And to tell stories. I was good at it.
In
a moment of openness, I told her that I had so many stories. We lived in the
country and I was a huge animal lover. We had dogs and chickens and goats and
gerbils and lizards and everything in between.
I
remember telling her about Chick-Chick. How one day my brother found her left
behind by the mama hen and other chicks. Her leg was broken and she couldn’t
get around. So we rescued her. And my dad helped me make a splint for her leg
with a plastic straw and electrical tape. I put her in a cage and nursed her
back to health. We would change the splint every week or so until eventually
she didn’t need it anymore.
My little chick grew up and was one of my closest pets. She’d follow me around the yard and fly
on my arm pretty well on command.
And
when it came time for her to become a mama hen and make her own nest, she found
a spot in our garage in the nail box. Yes. My crazy little chicken made a nest
of nails. She laid four eggs and two actually hatched.
I
looked to my teacher and saw her smiling. She enjoyed listening to what I had
to say. And I felt a twinge of excitement. Maybe I could write. Maybe this
quiet girl who never had anything to say, actually did have something to offer.
I
remember writing a packet of poetry at a different point. All of the poems were
about nature. I spent tons of time finding pictures to print as the
backgrounds. I don’t think anyone else did this. I don’t know why I did. I’m
just weird like that. But one of my poems another teacher had marked that I
should enter it in a contest. I knew that I never would do such a thing. But
her words meant a lot. Again she mentioned the imagery. Again I was told I
could make pictures with my words. Another bit of hope. Another chance to dream
and have faith in a passion of mine.
Along
the way I lost it. There would be moments and glimmers. But it never went
anywhere. I never really pursued it. I barely graduated high school and had no
intention of ever going to college. Eventually years later, I enrolled in a
community college. Children had always been a joy for me. I babysat for as long
I could remember. My first job was a nanny. My next job was a school bus
monitor for special education high school students. I did childcare at my
church. It only made sense that I would be a teacher.
But
my desire to write always remained.
The
end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 has been a bit weird. Different and
challenging in new ways.
I’ve
sat here and typed out hundreds of words that I keep erasing. None seem quite
right. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.
I
have dreams. They seem more like fog than something I can define or touch or
even really describe. They just sneak into my landscape quiet and slow. They
change the way I see the world. And they are beautiful and wonderful, and don’t
always appear when I want them too. And oddly enough, they’ve felt like a bit
of an inconvenience as I’m trying to drive fast and get to my next destination.
But on those days I slow down, take a breath, and look around, I see the
sparkle.
I
just got interrupted by Greg asking me to help him. I finished the previous
sentence then sat my computer down on the bed. As I was getting ready to get
out from the covers I felt something hit me. Greg had a huge mischievous smile on his face! I
looked down. It was a snowball!!! I’ve been waiting MONTHS for the first snow
of this winter season. I hadn’t even seen flurries yet.
After
jumping up and down and screaming like a crazy person, I threw on my rain boots
and a hoodie and ran outside with Mandy at 7:00 at night in my pajamas.
My
husband threw a snowball at me in bed. How wonderful is my life?!
I
can’t wipe the smile off my face. On a night where the remnant of depression
and exhaustion clouded a bit of my vision. Where I sat here cuddled up in bed
wanting to write, but not knowing what. Being drawn to ideas and thoughts of
writing. Thinking through dreams and hopes and ideas not quite strung together.
Once again putting words down on discouragement and sadness. But each time I
got them out, feeling the need to delete them off the screen.
Then
getting hit by a snowball in my bed. Joy. Excitement. Every bit of randomness.
Moments catered to my personality.
I get caught up in the worry and the stress and the fear of missing it. I get distracted by thinking I'll never achieve the things I want. I worry about getting it all wrong.
So
yeah, this post is all over the place. But dear readers, I’m sure you’d expect
nothing less. And I'm living a piece of my dream. I'm writing and telling stories.
I
was looking through pictures I took on a hike with Mandy and Greg a little over
a week ago. I took like a dozen pictures of Mandy’s feet. The muddy, messy,
hairy, loveliness of them.
I
mean it’s hard to get more random than that.
Like going to see a waterfall and taking a picture of a tree.
Sometimes it's the waterfall that catches my focus. The noise and the rush of the water. But sometimes it's the skinny little tree, that can be so easy to not notice.
My
dreams consist of things like this. I want to be like my teacher who listened
to a shy girl tell a story. I want to rescue baby chicks. I want to encourage people to do the things that
they love. I want to see the world and think about things deeply. I want to
throw snowballs inside the house. I want to run around crazy like my doggie
with the muddy feet. I want to write about all of the things.
I
want to go to see a waterfall and take a picture of a tree.
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