It Found Me

Let’s get this straight.

I never intended to be a writer. In fact, never once did I say or even think, “Gosh, I really want to be writer when I ‘grow up.’” I place the words “grow up” in quotes because without the responsibility of a marriage, a mortgage, and motherhood, it many ways, it feels like I haven’t quite reached the realm of grown up-hood.

Now, my brother, who isn’t grown up yet, and my sister who is, they pursued writing from an early age. In fact, both of them were writing articles for local newspapers by the time they were in high school. I, on the other hand, would write nothing more than an occasional entry in my journal – typically about some guy that I had a crush on that I wish would notice me. (Ah, some things never change.)

But again, let’s get this straight.

Writing found me.

I didn’t find it.

To be honest, I don’t think I’m the best candidate for being a writer. One of the words that my friend Jessica recently used to describe me is active. The act of sitting down and typing isn’t very active to me. In fact, it’s rather painful - kind of like how it is when I’m forced to sit still on airplanes for long periods of time. I’m way too kinestic to be sitting around reading and writing all day. Yet Stephen King recently told me (in a book he wrote called On Writing) that if I want to be a good writer, then that’s exactly what I need to do.

I suppose that’s another reason why it’s good for me that I made the move to New York. Granted, I still get to go running in Central Park, but I am no longer (sadly!), facing the temptation of day long rock climbing, surfing, or snowboarding excursions - not to mention the fact that I still have a rather limited social network. So far, since I’ve moved to the city, writing has become my closest friend. (And let me tell you, that’s kind of like becoming friends with yourself. Although I do find myself rather entertaining and can go long periods of time content in my aloneness – the reality is, I’m primarily an extrovert and I like people interaction. Thank God for my part time job as a Resident Director!)

I called my Dad just after 10 this evening when I was feeling less than inspired to write; I was hoping he might trigger the release of some sort of writing juice into system that would help prompt me in writing a piece.

All I had was, “Last night I had a dream that I ate A LOT of cake. I woke up smiling,

(piece in from other document)

And I didn’t think the cake story would really cut it. Although the cake was sitting out on a ping pong table and I could have talked about how the first question my dad asks whenever I meet a guy is, “Does he play ping pong?” I just wasn’t feeling the cake theme – it only made me want to eat some more.

So this evening when I called home, I asked my dad to tell me something funny.
“Something funny?” He thought for a moment. “Okay, I’ve got it. The other day I was telling a story about this comedian, but I couldn’t remember the comedian’s name. An hour after I had told the story, the name finally came to me.”
“That’s it?” I questioned, disappointed by the lack of humor. “Dad, that’s not funny. That’s memory loss.”

I kept him on the phone a little longer, before deciding he wasn’t much help so I decide to go for coffee, and then drop by the Empire State Building to pick something up – which is where I am now – suddenly inspired, and needing to get some of these words off of my mind and onto to a document.

But back to writing… and how it found me.