Because You're Funny

On arriving at my family's house, my little six year old sister greeted me with a picture of a pony, holding a string of balloons in its mouth and wearing a birthday hat. She had colored it for me, "because you're funny," she said, and because it made her think of me. That brings me back to a couple of years ago after I'd spent a summer interning in Detroit. When I returned, she asked me if I was still crazy. I replied to her and my little brother, 6 at the time, who I saw also eagerly waiting for my response: "No! A big purple elephant came and took all of my craziness away!" They laughed and told me that now they know I am still crazy.

These are the kinds of instances that make me want to be a writer, to believe that it is not just for myself, but that somehow I might be able to put together enough words, arranged just right, to get adults to finally find those tears they'd been waiting for or to cleverly paint a picture that will make a child laugh. But then there are also those instances when someone has nothing good to say about a story I've written or when feel I might be so far behind in this process or I just haven't heard something positive in a while. These instances, seemingly prone to my failure, provide the opportunity for me to lunge all the more forward in my efforts. It is easy to be a writer when little kids tell you you're funny or people tell you they are delighted in your stories, but it is necessary to being a writer, that when they don't, you do not doubt what they once let you believe.

I have made progress, that is, if progress means learning just how big the mountain is, which it must because it would be ridiculous to approach one without a humble fear of what climbing it entails. Yesterday I pondered and finally admitted that I actually have to write things people will never read, that becoming a better writer doesn't just mean that reading a lot will convert my written words into essays, books, and stories without blemish--the essays, books, and stories will grow from a compost of word waste, in which somewhere there is a patch of fertile soil from which grows a perfect--pretty at least--flower.

My good teacher told me never to end with a quote, which I have firmly obeyed, usually, but since this is a blog, and blogs are first drafts, I leave you with this, which is not just for writers: "I heard a preacher say recently that hope is revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try and do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up" (Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird).