Good Morning! It is Thursday at approximately 10 am so that means — I’m here!
I have not thought about all this in years, but since joining Substack which is very much a writers community, I have.
In the second grade I won a schoolwide class writing contest. I won tickets to Eadaville Railroad for my holiday piece on the subject “Why I want to take my family to Eadaville Railroad.”
In sixth grade I had a Language Arts teacher who loved to edit our assignments with a signature hot pink pen. Ms. Parkhurst was notoriously tough and strict. You never received back a writing assignment without cross-eye inducing grammar and punctuation edits filling the pages in scorching pink. I wrote a piece for a sensory writing assignment tiled “Carbon Monoxide Poisoning” and it came back with a single pink A+ at the top. If Ms. Parkhurst gave me a pass on edits because my family and I had almost died and I wrote about it, I’ll take it.
My junior year of high school history class was taught by the engaging and spirited, all-time favorite teacher of mine, Mrs. Gore. I was a once-in-awhile procrastinator and so I completed most of the “letters from war” writing assignment the night before. I was writing love letters from a WWI soldier home to his girlfriend, his girlfriend back to him. I remember being sprawled out on our teal blue carpet in front of the built ins where our Gateway Computer sat, organizing the back and forth with each letter I printed. I turned in the assignment and felt relieved to have it done.
When Mrs. Gore announced she had not finished grading our projects because someone had plagiarized, gasps were heard round the classroom, looks of confusion and shrugs between classmates exchanged. She informed us of an ongoing investigation into the plagiarism — her and other teachers were looking for the true source of the writing!
Eventually, an announcement came in the form of a sincere apology: these letters were in fact the source of truth.
The letters were mine. She was apologizing to me. I had not considered this. Had I written something so profound and insightful on World War I and life back at home during the war, a relationship between two war torn lovers, that someone who has been teaching history for 20 years thought I plagiarized them? Mrs. Gore triumphantly read some of my letters aloud to the class.
I do not know that I thought of this much afterwards, after the bell rang and life as a teenager ushered on. I met my best guy friend turned boyfriend who I was still super giddy about in the hall. He probably (definitely) told me how he scored a handle of vodka for the weekend, where were we partying! So, combined with the natural high of classroom praise, life as a junior at DY high school was good!
I never pursued writing professionally. I never took a writing class in college. Writing has long been something I’ve done on instinct. I have volumes of journals from decades of writing. The journaling faded slightly as I entered my mid 20s and started a blog. Which was truly a coming-of-age never ending writing assignment that started out extremely cringe (whose blog didn’t?) but lead this vulnerable 26-year-old Bostonian free spirit into the light. Not vulnerable in the sense that I was sharing anything deeply personal* but I was putting out to the world my opinions and my photos. I was writing restaurant reviews, seeking out the best dishes and cocktails. I was attending dinners, press events, and launch events every night of the week. I made close friendships through it and I definitely learned a lot about….everything!
*Not that time I ended my six-and-a-half-year relationship, which was pretty messy, at age 29. All my best friends were married: there was me throughout my 20s living it up with them, celebrating their biggest moments, being their Maid of Honor, while feeling mostly happy and supported by my own relationship. Being in and / or attending 8 weddings per year, I did not feel a strong pull towards marriage, or to have kids. WHY? For a while I felt young and not ready. When seeking clarity, you can only be young and not ready for so long.
When things feel off in life that you cannot ignore, question them. When your intuition persists, let it. I was not sharing the type of soul searching, world crushing, intuition following, personal life stuff. Am I now?! There’s much more too it but long story short is I very much did want marriage, kids and a family.
I was travelling. LOOK AT ME! LOOK WHERE I WENT! It was more of a WE thing as opposed to anything solo: girlfriend getaways, lots of big group trips, and lots of traveling with my now husband. But the point is, I would not remember everything I did, what I ate, where I stayed, and how it all made me feel if I did not write it down. (If not that, all the photos.) On the contrary, it is not all about me. I want to know where you are going, what you love, what part of the world speaks to you and why. And what you are eating and drinking while you are there.
I was excited when the shift in life came to be pregnant, stay home, nest and raise babies. I was very, very present in life for all of that. The charge into motherhood at age 35 was welcome and fulfilling. I innately slowed down in other aspects of life as this new part picked up, I stopped galivanting about the city every night and blogging was sporadic. I stopped writing as much when I was buying a house, getting married, and breastfeeding newborns. And yet, I hadn’t abandoned it. The best part of my wedding was reading my vows to Bob. I wrote Camden’s birth story and I wrote about his stay in the NICU.
An aside — the two photo below are Ryder. Second kid getting some love, too.
NEWBORN-NESS. It goes faster than fast. Writing helps us control the speed at which life moves. It helps us process events and circumstances — be it nostalgia, joy, the world around us, trauma, heartache, grief, love. In return, it reminds us, it persists at us, to stay present in real life — existing for the you will never get these back moments. You will never again have this moment with your newborn baby, or this moment in this country with these people, so take in what you need, and let go of what does not matter.
When I did want to share again — What do I have time for now? was the question. A trip to Italy for 3 weeks when Camden was 6 months old gave me inspiration. I was feeling creative about all that we had experienced. Plus, travelling with a baby was kind of exciting. Even one who had a hard time sleeping at night. He was so much fun and napped great during the daytime — and at dinnertime. Strolls through Rome, beach days in Praiano, it all felt relatively seamless with him on the journey. That was in September 2019 before the pandemic. Ryder was born in December 2021! Post pandemic we started traveling as a family of four and the blog was still a place to store those adventures. But no one really knew that. Two years had gone by! Which lead me…
To growing a community here! To suddenly reading all the publications to see where I might fit in yet stand out.
As I just wove a tale of what I was writing in second grade, sixth grade, eleventh grade, and onward, I am grateful to writing for helping me find the way.
Sixth Grade Language Arts me: writes about Carbon Monoxide Poisoning. Processes what the hell happened. Understands from a young age how divine intervention steps in to save lives.
Eleventh Grade History Class me: Understands on a deeper level what war is, to be honest. Understood the assignment and then some.
Twenties me: Needed a creative outlet outside life in an office. Figures out a big key to life is our own intuition and actually listening to it. Being clear about what it is we really want. Manifesting. Among many other things. Oh Hi, we’ve got to move on here!!
As 2024 begins —
Inner me: thanks the universe regularly for deep love, health and togetherness.
Outer me: Is vulnerable. Is scared when I hit SEND TO EVERYONE but am doing it anyways. Wants you to gain something from what I am sharing. To be here without overwhelming. Outer me wants to go everywhere, literally and figuratively.
Come with!
“This space is for those who write at the liminal boundary of an already full, possibly overly-busy, rich life.” ~
“But the most important thing to understand if you want to be a writer is that you have to do it scared. If you are doing it right, the fear will never go away completely because writing is an incredibly vulnerable act.” ~
I can identify with so much of what you have written here!
I felt all the feels when reading this K. Your journey is beautiful and, honestly, your writing was a gift that you leveraged throughout. It's inspiring! You should be proud!