There I’d sit on her black leather, padded piano bench stroking the curly hair of her silver toy poodle named Sterling while she flipped through one of my music books. Sometimes she’d hum bits of a piece or chuckle at the memory of a particularly hard passage or bob her head to a tempo only she could hear while she narrowed down which options she would offer me for my next assignment.
It seemed she knew all the songs from the great composers. She’d either played them herself, fell asleep listening to them at night since she was a child, or taught them to her students. She was obsessed with music.
Eventually, she’d fold the book back on itself to crease it so it would stay open on one of the songs she’d chosen. I’d scoop Sterling up and scoot off the bench to stand by the piano while she played us excerpts from the pieces she’d narrowed down. She made playing the piano seem and sound effortless. After we’d chosen a piece, I’d take my seat again, and I wish I could say “and away we’d go” but it wasn’t anything like that.
Often, it felt like someone had taken my fingers and tied them in knots. Somehow, when faced with a new piece, you have to get what you just heard to travel from your eyes, through your brain, down your arms, through your hands, and out your fingertips. Usually your hands don’t want to cooperate. Not at first any ways. But eventually, after some weeks of practice, your fingers aren’t so clumsy anymore and after a few months, the piece that you could barely plunk your way through feels as natural as breathing. If magic exists, that’s it. You and the music become one. I’ve never experienced anything else like it, and I wonder, can it be that way with writing?
“Writer”
That’s what I typed into the little sidebar of my blog that I’ve resurrected for the who knows how many nth time.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this need to write. I think it comes from my grandmother who we and all of our friends called “Meme.” She used to lay in bed at night filling her notebooks with stories from her past and present. Sometimes, she’d read snippets of them to us.
It wasn’t unusual for her to give us our own journals or notebooks for birthdays and Christmas. I’d fill mine just like I saw her doing. At least some of those journals are sitting on my shelves to this day because my husband advised me not to throw them away. I don’t know if I can bring myself to read them. Maybe someday. For me, my journals are more about processing my emotional angst rather than recording my story, and they can be quite embarrassing.
Although I’ve always wanted to be a writer and had a blog on and off since highschool when they were first becoming a thing, writing has always been an on again off again thing for me. I think that’s pretty normal for wannabe writers. You know how the old saying goes, “Everyone wants to be a writer. Nobody wants to write.”
Right now, it feels just like learning to play a new piano piece used to feel – awkward and clumsy – like someone has tied my brain in knots. Just thinking about doing it makes me feel tired sometimes, but I want to be good at it. Maybe, dare I say it, even be great at it.
It used to feel easier, like it came natural to me, but it doesn’t feel that way anymore. Probably, because like the piano, I quit playing and practicing. Although I believe my chances at becoming a pianist are over, I don’t think my chances at becoming a writer are. I think that possibility is very much still within my grasp. I’m terrified of it, though. Kind of like I used to be terrified of those new piano pieces. I can find all kinds of ways to procrastinate when I know I should just sit down and write. I don’t know exactly what I’m afraid of.
Is it the work?
Because it definitely can be grueling. You can’t be lazy. You’re forced to take your thoughts and opinions and articulate them in an organized, cohesive, and interesting way. When you sit down to write, all of sudden, you realize you really don’t know anything about anything
You thought you were going to just sit down real quick and plunk out a smart, showy little essay? Wrong. You have to go back to the drawing board and do your research, which only leads to more questions and things you don’t know. Now you’re overwhelmed. You don’t even know where to start or what direction to go.
Oh, you thought you were going to be cute and just write fiction? Well, that often requires research too. No one writes a novel set in WWII, which it seems most are these days, without first researching WWII. Plus you’ve got to devise the plot line and avoid the plot holes. Good luck!
There's nothing quite like writing to reveal how little you actually know, much less, understand anything. And let’s not even get started on editing. Unless you are someone who loves the technicalities and details, it can be downright tortuous.
Maybe it’s the part where you offer up a part of your soul to an audience.
I hate vulnerability. I hate being vulnerable with others and I don’t much like it when they’re vulnerable with me. If you think I’m bad at writing, you should see and hear my verbal communication skills when I try to share my feelings with others or they share their feelings with me. They’re terrible, and my attempts at empathy and comfort are stilted and stiff.
But when you write, you have to be vulnerable if you want your writing to be any good. At least, that’s what I’ve found from my limited experience. You offer your thoughts, opinions, story, and feelings up on a platter for the world to consume. Will they find them sweet and delicious or will they spit them out like my husband did the first time I made cilantro rice, and he told me never to make it again? Don’t worry, ladies. I did indeed make it again.
In our day of social media, people don’t hesitate to tell you exactly what they think behind the safety of their phones. And since most people are lazy, they don’t take the time to craft their comments with care. It’s almost as if the point is to be as mean as possible. Everyone wants to sound like the smartest person in the room, so what better way to do that than to criticize someone’s work and to do it as meanly as possible?
Although the criticism and judgment can sting sometimes, I can get past that pretty quickly because honestly, what do I care what some rando on the internet who doesn’t know me and who I’ll probably never meet think of me. I don’t really care. I want people to love my work, but if they don’t, moving on. I’ve got a life to live and things to write. Gotta keep the internet idiots busy. The thing is, as much as I hate being vulnerable, if you give me a pen, I’ll probably lay bare more of my soul than I should and regret it later or try to offer you some words of comfort that I wouldn’t be able to verbalize otherwise.
Sometimes, I think it’s the endless options and possibilities that are so frightening when it comes time to sit down and write.
There are so many things I want to write about. So many stories in my head. So many things I want to dive into. How do you choose? And once you choose, how do you decide which direction you’re going to take? When faced with all of the possibilities, I feel overwhelmed and paralyzed and like I need a nap to clear my head. I suppose for some people writing comes easy. For me, it’s grueling work that I both love and dread.
Right now, I’d like to do anything but write. I could take the dogs for a walk, straighten or curl my hair, clean out my closet that’s in desperate need of attention, or work on our finances. Last week, instead of writing, I read a book titled, You Are a Writer. I told myself I needed to be inspired, but really, I just needed to write.
And so here we are. Today, I told myself I had to sit my butt down in the chair and write for one hour. I finally got to it after adding some things to my Amazon cart. They’re currently sitting there because I’m pretending that I’m not going to buy them although we all know the truth: I am going to buy them.
Anyways, I put that little title of “writer” in my sidebar and social media profiles, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if I want to call myself a writer then I have to write and put at least some of it out into the world no matter how bad it is. I’ve decided that I’d rather have written poorly and given it my best shot than never have written at all. Maybe no one will read it. That’s both my hope and fear. Whatever. This is me being vulnerable with you
The Youtube fireplace is crackling in the background and the dogs napping as I sit here writing as badly as I can. The timer says 15 more minutes. I wonder if I can pull it off. I desperately want to give up, but I know I won’t like myself if I do.
So here’s to starting this damn blog again and sticking with it this time. I don’t have an agenda for what kind of content is going to show up here. I know that breaks the rules, but I’m so tired of all the rules. Thanks to social media, there’s no shortage of people sharing rules about every little thing with us. I’m just going to write and see where it takes me – where it takes us. Like Roy Rogers, I don’t want to be fenced in, and I want to be able to belt as loudly as Frank Sinatra that “I did it my way.”
Okay. My hour is up. I’m going to walk the dogs while the sun is still shining and do something with my hair. The closet and finances? Meh, they can wait.