I Write, Therefore, I Am

Stories and poems have always been a large part of my life. I grew up surrounded by books. I can confidently say that I owned every Little Golden Book printed in the 1970's. Every. Single. One.

I was a curious child, full of questions. I pestered my mother with endless queries. I'd sit on the floor in front of her as she read the daily newspaper, poking my tiny fingers into the back of it, reciting the letters I saw and asking what they meant. After weeks of this blasted inconvenience, she sat me down for a series of lessons. She taught me to read. I was 3. She told me later she thought that was the only way she'd ever get any peace. From then on, she'd give me part of her newspaper and I'd lay it on the floor and read it at her feet while she sipped tea and read the rest of it.

My father made up rhymes to both entertain and educate me. They were simple little ditties with a message. I still remember one of them, a snappy little number about traffic safety:

"Stop, look and listen before you cross the street.

Use your eyes and use your ears before you use your feet."

I remember loving his rhymes and the lyrical, almost musical way the words danced across my tongue as I recited them with him.

Once I could read, I was keen to make up stories and rhymes of my own, first by simply telling them, then by scribbling them down in what I called "grown up writing". Really, it was nothing more than the loopy scribbles of a pre-schooler, but to me, my "stories" were bona fide manuscripts. I'd stand in the middle of our livingroom, commanding the attention of all present and "read" my latest works.

Once I got to school, I found myself often on the outside, looking in. Other children didn't seem to share my interests. And I didn't share theirs. I was routinely uncomfortable in their midst. I learned to be an observer rather than a participant and those observations often ended up on paper.

I was first published, if one can call it that, when I was in kindergarten. My poem, entitled Snow, found it's way into our school newspaper, the Hubbard Avenue Elementary School Roadrunner. It was short and sweet:

I like snow,

I watch it blow.

Hardly Shakespeare, but I was 5 and I revelled in the attention the adults showered on me. I may not have fit in well with the other kids, but writing sure did get me the approval of the adults in my life.

As the years passed, I grew and changed and so did my writing. In my teens, I became somewhat of a chamelion. I was able to act like my peers, at least well enough to have a fairly decent social circle. I wasn't what you'd call popular, but I always had someone to hang around with. I walked the walk, talked the talk and dressed the part. But behind closed doors, in the privacy of my bedroom, I did what I did best, write.

I didn't write all the time. Not every day or every week. It was more sporadic than that. I wrote when the mood struck me and during those tumultuous teen years, inspiration struck in tandem with another emotion, heartbreak. What ensued were volumes upon volumes of poetry about unrequited love, love lost, undying love, confusion and conviction. There were also a few stories. I wrote them all in coil bound notebooks and always with a black pen. Then I hid them between my mattress and boxspring.

Writing had become my therapy. I had, I discovered, a knack for putting into words those things that most people struggle to express. It helped me to process my emotions and to make sense out of an often senseless world.

It had also become my greatest shameful secret. I dared not let anyone know I wrote. First, I didn't really want anyone knowing my innermost thoughts. They were private, mine and mine alone. Secondly, I was overwhelmed by a fear of ridicule and rejection. It was the '80's and I didn't want my tenuous grasp on social acceptability spoiled by the revelation that I was some sort of "smart person". I knew where the smart kids sat in the cafeteria. Alone. They sat alone.

I was forced out of my writing closet, at least a little bit, by one of my high school English teachers, Mrs. Spencer. It was grade 12, I think, and we had been given a poetry assignment. I wasn't used to writing on demand, but I gave it my best shot. To my absolute horror, a few days later, she held my poem up as an example, a huge red 10/10 scrawled in the righthand corner. She read it aloud to the entire class. She paused throughout to explain what exactly she liked. Use of language here, alliteration there, a metaphor, a simile. I sank into my chair, hoping to fade out of sight as my words were hanging out there in the air. My face was red from the heat of 30 pairs of eyes all staring at me. It was the worst 2 minutes of my life to that point.

When she was finished reading, she announced that she had taken the liberty of submitting my poem to a local contest. A few weeks later, she presented me with the grand prize, a cheque for $50. Such was the price for my pubescent dignity, $50.

After high school, I found myself writing a lot less frequently. I was busy with other things, university, law school, raising a family, working. I only ever put pen to paper for creative purposes when that lightning bolt of inspiration hit me with an irresistable urge. Even as an adult, those flashes seemed to coincide with difficult times in my life. There were poems about the lonliness and powerlessness of being in an abusive relationship and even more about rising from the ashes after my escape. There were poems about poverty, exhaustion, new love, betrayal and everything in between. There were endless chapters, some finished, some of a book I tried over and over again to write about my father's life. And they all sat unread. Just like my record of teenage angst, I hid them, still my shamful secret.

I slowly began to feel a longing to share my words with someone. I wasn't sure why at the time, but it was a nagging desire, knawing at me more and more as I got older. I suppose I wanted to be understood, to be "known", truly known, for the real me. Not the work version of me, or the mommy version of me, or the me I generally showcased while out and about. The real me, imperfect, awkward and with what I sensed was a talent, on some level, worth sharing.

I gingerly dipped my toe into the pool of exposure, showing one of my poems to my then husband. Who better to expose myself to than the person I married, right? Wrong. He stared at me blankly, notebook in hand and said flatly, "but it doesn't even rhyme". His words cut my soul into pieces. My worst fear had come true. My words, my innermost feelings and desires weren't good enough. Back into that writing closet I went, and of course, I wrote about that heartbreak.

After licking my wounded pride for a time, I began to feel the need again to show my true self. I ignored it. I knew, on some level that was a bad idea. I was finding myself struggling with anxiety and depression. I was desperately unhappy in a career and a marriage, that were both forcing me into being something I wasn't. I was playing a role 24/7, or rather a series of roles, and I played them so well, I lost myself. Or, I almost did. I crashed and burned, left my job, left my husband and spent a month in bed.

I was alone and ashamed and again, I worked it out through my trusty friends, the black pen and paper. I reconnected with my high school sweetheart and slowly began to gain enough confidence to show him one of my poems. He was, and is, an artist, so if anyone was going to understand my self expression, it was going to be him.

He loved my work! I let him read absolutely everything I had written that survived countless moves, purges and clear outs. He started encouraging me to seriously consider making a career of writing. I scoffed at first. Of course, I had dreamed of being a professional writer. Spending my days at home sitting in a sun drenched room, plying my trade and getting paid for it, maybe even celebrated. Who wouldn't want that? But that was the sort of thing other people did. That wasn't the kind of success that people like me rose to.

With time, I did begin to share my work. I still desperately wanted to bare my soul to others, to show the world who I was and to maybe touch someone in the process. I also wanted to somehow test the viability of being able to actually write for a living. However, I was also still very much afraid. I began using a pen name and allowing my artist-man (who is now my husband) to post my work on his various social media feeds. There were only two rules, he could never use my real name, and he could never post any of it on my social media. I wasn't ready for my social circle to know my secret. I was afraid of the same rejection and ridicule that paralyzed me as a teenager.

The response was phenominal! Comments and likes and hearts poured in. People were saying what I had suspected deep down all along, that my writing touched something deep inside of them. It not only entertained, it also put words to a myriad of complex situations and emotions that begged for description. I was painting pictures, just like my husband, only my pictures were painted with words.

Almost fully out of my writing closet, I joined Vocal +. I figured I'd give it a try. It was a place I could safely publish my work without the risk of anyone who knew me seeing it. And maybe I'd even make a few dollars out of it. I slowly began sharing my published stories, first through my husband's social media, then on my own, but only in writing groups and never, ever on my personal feed. This went on for a few months and I received some very encouraging comments. I began to consider doing this writing thing for real. I began to listen to that voice that had been there all along, telling me this was what I was meant to do.

At almost 50, I held my breath and took the leap. I shared one of my stories on my own social media, on my own personal feed, and even claimed it as mine. I'm pretty sure only 4 or 5 of my 200 or so friends even read it, but the comments were all the same, keep doing this, we want to see more.

So, I kept on writing, fueled by something other than pain. I was fueled by passion and confidence, the same passion and confidence I had as that 3 year old standing in the livingroom with her "manuscripts".

Then I won a challenge! I was so excited, I posted the news along with a link to my story, "The World According To Winnie" all over every social media platform my husband and I were on. For the first time in my life, I didn't give a second thought to what people might think. I was me, I was proud and I was a writer! The floodgates were wide open. There was no turning back now. I felt free, freer than I'd ever been!

Of course, I still struggle with answering the question, why would anyone want to read my stuff. But I have an answer for it now, and I think it's a pretty good one. Because it's real, it's honest, it's me on paper. My work is me, and I am my work. It's everything I've been through and everywhere I've been. It honours everyone I've loved and jabs at everyone I've hated. It's my therapy and the one thing that's been with me my entire life. It's the human experience woven together the only way I know how, with words, and it touches the reader because they're human too.

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