10. Truce and Consequences

When sleep eludes me, I steal out to the deck of our house to sit in the midnight coolness. After my mother died I’d watch the skies for a shooting star, her assurance that she was fine and loved me still. I would do the same after my father’s passing. I have given up the search for my parents in these mystical nights of hope. Now I sit on my deck, solitary in the musings of my life story that fill these pages. 

My daughter recently asked if writing this blog was healing. Others have asked if I found my writing to be therapeutic, restorative. I had to think long on these questions for the answers did not come easily. I am a survivor. I am resilient. Is healing or therapy required? I think not at this stage of my life. As a niece recently mentioned, “Well, it’s not like you can go back and fix everything with your parents, so you just have to move on, right?”

Right. I believe I’m sane now. I feel in control of my story.

No, that’s not true. I just lied.

Last week I almost quit this blog, overwhelmed by the compulsion to write my story. Exhausted and weary of myself, emotions ran too high for comfort and I cried for two days. My story can be difficult to write, notwithstanding my habitual leaning toward unworthiness which makes me believe I am a lousy writer (don’t take the bait with that statement).

Last week I hosted a Pity Party worthy of Midnight on the Deck material (hmm, that has the ring of a book title but let’s save that for another day).

For the past few days, the word “truce” has been pinging around in my brain. It speaks to the warring sides within me, although I’m not sure I’ll ever make a peace pact with my critical side and belief in my inherent unworthiness. We’ve been partners far too long to shred the relationship now. After all, who would I become if I felt good about myself? I’d probably lose weight, color my hair purple, and have bold conversations with people I don’t know. I might even become witty on Twitter posting questions like, “Who has a second toe that’s longer than your other toes?” or I’d finally decide to write a novel with a lurid sex scene. Who knows what risky things I might do if I loved myself? Maybe I’d buy a bathing suit for the first time in eons and strut my way to the neighborhood pool without fear of raising the water level. No, scrap that one. Maybe I would spend the remaining years of my life in joy and contentment instead of bemoaning my wrinkled neck that vies with the wattles of the wild turkeys that roam our backyard every spring. The possibilities are endless. 

As I sat on the deck at midnight last evening, the soothing music of the night washed over me. The song of a thousand crickets, the low hooting of romantic owls, and the soft breeze stirring the evergreens spoke to me of a truce, peacemaking with those who played a role in my life narrative. If I am willing to make peace and forgive then I can indeed become the narrator of my story instead of reliving it. If I can forgive myself and my family and yes, even the whispering girls who laughed behind my back, then I can write confidently of a new beginning. What would be required to restart my life, even now when there is less time ahead than behind?  

I don’t have the answers to the questions that have plagued me this past week, but I guess I wanted you to know that I remain a seeker and optimist. Writing keeps me honest, vulnerable, and available. Last week I would have groaned that I don’t relish those attributes. I’m still moaning a bit today, but somewhere deep inside is the call to write. That’s one answer I can provide. “Yes, okay, I’ll keep writing.” 

When I was in high school students were required to take a creative writing course. My teacher was Mrs. Herron. She was an awesome teacher, constantly prodding our imaginations to find their home through pencil to paper. Mrs. H would stand at the front of the class with her arms outspread singing the praises of grammar and sentence structure as though to write was to create something magical. I don’t know if she inspired others in the class, but she lit a fire under me and she knew it. It wasn’t a mystery that I was not performing well in school. I was in a state of unworldliness and couldn’t concentrate. Mrs. H seemed to understand, and I suspect she considered me worthy of her special attention. Mrs. Herron wanted to help me find a place of self-discovery and achievement. Creative writing was the perfect spot. 

I never failed to read the class-assigned books by Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Melville, and Hawthorn. I traveled with the Joad family on their migration from the Oklahoma dust bowl in The Grapes of Wrath and tasted the grit on my tongue. The Tale of Two Cities gripped me and I could hear the clicking of Madame Defarge’s knitting needles as she watched beheadings during the French Revolution. The backdrop to the class was my mother and her love for great writing. Mom would hand me books written by Daphne du Maurier, F. Scott Fitzgerald and  John Cheever. Sometimes I would be reading two books at one time, switching back and forth between the two.

Mrs. H required the class to pen our thoughts about books, to confront and challenge the author. I was bold and courageous enough to take on Fyodor Dostoevsky and his novel Crime and Punishment. I wrote a lengthy exposition titled, Oh Absolom, on the sentencing of Raskolnikov, which sent Mrs. Herron over the moon. She wrote long sentences on my paper, asking more questions of me, questions of morality and fairness. I got an A- on that paper only because I handed it in late. 

It’s  interesting to me that despite Mom’s insistence on my reading The Great Authors, she never once read any of my writing. Maybe I never showed her any. I can’t remember. I was a good writer for my age and it was the one time I believed in my potential. Then one day, Mrs. Herron failed to show up for class. She never returned. There were rumors she had experienced a nervous breakdown. My heart wept with her absence. I figured creative passion must have gotten the best of her. It was also well known Mrs. H was receiving the occasional hand-slap for her teaching methods. Whatever the case may have been, the creative writing class was never the same. Mrs. H’s replacement was a dusty old woman who didn’t care about writing or me. I had lost my mentor and muse. I crawled back inside myself and that, as they say, was that.

Years later, in my late 20’s, while helping my parents clean their basement of old boxes, I came across the paper I wrote on Crime and Punishment. I sat on the basement floor and read it over with amazement.

Holding it up to my mother I said, “Geeze, Mom. I wrote this paper when I was 16. It’s really good.”

Mom took the paper from my hand and said, “Well, that’s the way it was with you. Always late.”

Mom never read my exposition in which my imagination was ignited by a woman I would never see again and who believed in me. I still have that paper to remind me during the Midnight on the Deck musings that once there was hope and hope there still may be.