I am.

 I have always wanted to be a writer. I know this, because I have always been a writer. I still remember a school assignment from around the second grade (grade two for my fellow Canadians) where we had to write a myth, and I wrote mine about how polar bears became white. I remember asking for extra pieces of paper, because I got lost in the process of writing and the story just flowed out of me, with twists and turns, and in the end I had to end it in a disappointing, sudden manner because I had to turn it in, but I felt like I could have gone on forever.

This taught me two things:

1. Brevity is not my strength; and

2. I am a writer.

I have spent the time since longing to be a writer, walking through bookstores in wonderment that behind every one of those spines was a person who was An Actual Writer who Had the Courage to Write.

But I've kept writing. Sometimes just in a little notebook, with snippets of ideas and words that call to me; sometimes in blogs (this is far from my first - I wrote my way through cancer, and then again through divorce); sometimes in email exchanges with friends (I'm talking to you, HCR); sometimes in stories that - usually at an inconvenient time when I am in the middle of something else or it's 10pm on a Tuesday - suddenly make themselves known to me and need to be written down right away, in that moment.

I have written terrible poetry, a range of essays, countless memoir pieces, and ramblings about the day to day of my life. I have written short stories, outlines for books, and one children's story. I have written in a dozen journals, filling their pages in illegible scrawl. I have written one note for publication in the NYT. I've put too much care into social media comments (before I abandoned all social media, recognizing that it was not the way I wanted to spend my life's energy).

Lately, I return over and over to the Anais Nin quote:

And finally, at long last, I think it's true.

I have spent 51 years dancing around the idea of being a real writer, the kind who actually shares her work with the world, the kind who gets paid, the kind who gets published. I have spent 51 years in longing, desperation, anonymity, ignoring every instinct that told me that this is what I was supposed to do.

Enough.

I might be nobody, it's true. But I don't think so. I think I'm somebody, and I think I have something to say, and I don't think I've wasted 51 years not doing the thing I long to do - I think I've spent 51 years getting ready for this moment.

I've read that Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God in seven weeks. It's so easy to reduce her brilliance into the stroke of genius that allows such a book to flow from her in less than two months, but I'd say that it took her entire life to write that book, and that what was inside of her all along bubbled out in seven weeks.

I have some ideas that have been inside me my whole life about what it means to be a woman, about how we choose right and wrong, about how to be cruel and how to be kind, about doing things our own way, despite it all. I've started writing them down in a book tentatively titled Might. (I love the double meanings of words - there is the might that is power, and there is the might that is possibility. We have all heard that might makes right, but I want to believe that it is our inherent possibility that makes right, not our wild fight to overtake another person with power.)

Not "I might write" but "I am filled with might."

I have frittered away so much time being afraid, and listening to the voices that cried "mend my life" (Oliver) instead of mending my own life.

In order for me to be whole, and heal, and live up to the potential and power of my own life, I must write, and I must be brave, and I must be willing to share how inept I am in addition to how vastly powerful and wise I am, one after the other, and both tangled together.

It's time.

I'm terrified - not that I will write garbage, but that I will not follow through. I have the insane, wonderful, exhilarating hubris that I actually have something to say, and an interesting take on new and old ideas, that - should I ever put them down, and organize them, and take the time - the world will want to read them.

I am putting myself on notice. It's time.

How will I do it? It is one thing to have will, another to have a plan. Do I have a plan?

***

1. Goodbye, television.

2. Remove the NYT from my phone. (So many articles, so little time. I love reading the news, it makes me feel smart and up to date. But the world will not suffer if I'm less well informed, and the hours I waste are quite extraordinary.)

3. Refuse to sleep before I write. I say this rather than "get up at 5am to write" or "write before bed" because I know myself too well. Some days I awaken with an idea, and other times it isn't until it's dark that I figure it out.

4. My goal is 5000 words a week. This is modest - I hope to do more.

***

I have squandered quarantine. I have fallen into sloth and television and staring out the window, dreaming without doing, and I could have written multiple books by now - after all, what else is there to do?! But to say so is also false. I did what I could do when I did it. It's not time to beat myself up, to chastise the me that came before and tell her all the things she did wrong. (I'm good at that - it's time to build a different skill.) Now it's time to be who I've always wanted to be, who I've always been capable of being, who I've always been. Now it's time to put on the outside what has always been on the inside.

Statistically, I will fail. Nobody makes any money as a writer, they say. It's an unstable profession, they say. It's a cute hobby, they say.

Well, screw that.

Bookstores are filled with books from authors who published them.

Everyone can name countless people who make a living writing books.

Lately I read a few books and thought "good grief I can do better than this!" and these are by successful authors.

The statistics area always a lie. They aren't about the individual.

I am ready to tell my truth, and to trust that the world is ready for it. I am ready to find success. My goal is to have something ready to send to publishers before school returns in August, about a half a year, maybe less. This is both an eternity from now and a blink, but I think it's enough. I am not trying to write a book in six months, I'm trying to finish the book that I've been writing on for over 51 years.

It's time.

***

I plan to use this blog to document my process, to tell the story of telling my story. This space will be my warmup, my accountability, and the account of my struggles and strategies and successes.

I'm ready. I'm stiff from being curled into a tight knot, protecting my soft middle. I'd rather fail than not try...but I know, deep within, that I'm not going to fail. This is faith, and it is bigger than my fear.

I am a writer.

Taking the Leap

How do we know when we are ready to jump? Why is it that we can stand on the precipice in fear, our hearts pounding against our ribs, our breath difficult, sweat pooling as we think "I can't. I can't!" and then suddenly - we just do.

I remember when Tessa was quite young, years ago, and we went to a pool with a high diving board. She climbed the ladder, stood at the top, and froze. She really couldn't do it. She tried several times, bowing her head, her cheeks red, as she backed down the ladder to let the next person climb up to take the leap.

But then one day -she trembled at the top, but then she leaped. She splashed. She swam, spluttering and smiling, to the wall, climbed out of the pool, and went straight back in line. She never hesitated again.

I'm interested in understanding that moment between knowing "I can never; it's not possible" and "I'm terrified, but I'm doing it anyway."

***

Some people seem to naturally go for it. Some people are born at ease in the world.

I am not one of those people. I'm awkward and confused and eager to please, quick to wonder if I'm the one at fault. I often think that everyone else has it figured out, and I'm left wondering when I will figure it out.

But then people reveal their truths, and I realize that those at-ease people aren't at-ease at all. Very few people are, actually. Everyone is scurrying around, trying to prove something to themselves, or their fathers, or someone, that they are okay. It's a rare person who radiates joy and peace.

Once I started looking for the "radiating joy and peace and at one with themselves so they weren't afraid to jump" people, I started to see how rare they were.

***

My grandfather - the one in the "Telling" post, the one who was a Nazi soldier - took risks. But he didn't do it with love and joy, and he felt no peace. He plowed through everyone in his path, knocking other people down with insults, money, or power, so that he could get what he wanted. He took financial risks, and he took relationship risks. The financial risks paid off: he died with a lot of money in the bank. The personal risks did not pay off: rather than garnering respect for his professional accomplishments and wealth, he died without a friend. I remember 12 people at his funeral; though he barely knew my ex-husband (they didn't even bother going to our wedding) my ex was a pall-bearer because they didn't have enough people to carry his coffin (and his granddaughters, flesh and blood he'd known all their lives, didn't count, because they were female).

So, he found the courage to move to a foreign country (twice), starting his life over. But I think he was running away as much as anything. I rarely saw joy in him, and I never saw peace.

***

There are a few people that seem to know things like when to jump. Oprah, Barack and Michelle Obama (together and separately), Maya Angelou (rest in peace), Brene Brown, and Cheryl Strayed come to mind. These people draw people from near and far - we're drawn to them; we can't get enough. I think it's because they know how to be their best selves, that they have tapped into something deep within themselves that we really want.

When Oprah says "this I know for sure..." I am sure that she really does know. When Barack said "yes we can" I believed him. When Maya said that she was phenomenal, I didn't have a doubt in my mind.

They are so sure of who they are that they take the leap. They become presidents and poets, writers and wives, philosophers and professors, because they are sure. They just - leap. And we watch them, and we are awed.

But I've read enough of their words, seen enough of their stories, to know that if any of them were reading this, they'd shake their heads and say, "no, no, no."

Just because they do it doesn't mean it is easy.

***

When Tessa stood at the high board, failing and climbing down on multiple occasions, she wasn't failing at all. She was proving that she was bigger than her fear. She measured the size of the fear - height, width, depth - and found it immense. But at one point, one that she knew was coming - for, after all, she didn't climb up just once and change her mind, she climbed up again and again. She must have know, somewhere deep inside, that she COULD do it.

The very first time she was climbing down the ladder, there was still a little voice inside her that said, "I'll try again. I can." She failed many times before she succeeded - but then, I think that's wrong. She never failed. She just wasn't ready. When she was ready, she leaped. The success was always lurking within her.

I know my daughter is brave because she was terrified, but she chose to overcome her fear. She made a conscious decision to do the thing that scared her.

Have I mentioned yet that she is my favorite person, and that while she certainly drives me crazy, she is also incredible, strong, and wise beyond her years?

***

I'm trying to take the leap in several places in my life. I have an old, valued friendship that is falling apart, and I'm taking the leap to bring my authentic self to it even if that means that the friendship is over. I'm trying to write, and to share something true as I write, not just words. And I'm trying to put myself out there to find a partner who makes me laugh and helps me grow and fits me like my favorite pair of jeans.

Not easy.

I'm still at the top of the high board, trembling. No, wait, I'm mid-air! Will I survive the fall? Will the pool embrace me with a laugh, or turn to stone as I land?

My story will unfold. I don't know how it ends. But I know this: pools don't turn to stone. I'm a good swimmer. And the falling, the letting go, comes with some freedom. Maybe it's easier to fall than it is to tremble at the top, questioning every move. Maybe I was made to fall. No, maybe I was made to fly, to splash, to feel the water's embrace.

Aren't we all?

Where are you standing, trembling? Where are you leaping? What is the shape of the water you're diving into?

I think it's time. It's always time. My heart is pounding, my skin is sticky with nervous sweat, and I'm not sure why what looks so easy for everyone else is so hard for me, but I'm doing it anyway.

Ready, set....