I am a Writer!

"One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around." ---from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a child and made the connection between the reading circle and the books on the shelf. Being alone in my house for 3 weeks has allowed me to remember all my years of solitude, writing poems and stubs for short stories. I had plans to write the stories of the firstborn of Ray Carver, Grace Paley, Ellen Gilchrist, and Leonard Michaels.

When I was 17 I was graduating high school and planning to go to college. I had a friend from a neighboring town who wanted to be an actor. We spent long evenings in coffee shops discussing all manner of things relating to writing and acting and books we found interesting. I remember working out Einstein's theory of relativity on napkins once in a Denny's or IHOP. Kyle was the first to ever encourage me. I don't think I ever bothered to show him anything I'd written.

Then one day I heard a voice say to me as clear as day "don't bother studying writing until you have something to write about...find a trade, live a regular life, and learn what people care about...then the writing will come..." I had been trying to figure out how to find writer's college like the actor's college Kyle had found for himself. I tried to explain the voice to Kyle, but I don't think he understood it. He thought I was copping out.

So off I went to find a trade. I took a lot of math and sciences early in college because my test scores were high. I was on my way to engineering school. Except that I hated drafting. I loved the idea of computers and loved the theoretical possibilities. I decided against computer science once when standing in line for my turn to run my program in the computer. The line went out the door and wrapped around the building. I saw an upper classman reduced to tears when he tripped and dropped his hefty box of punched cards and they flew willy nilly driven by the east Texas wind. I was standing in line to run my little 10 card program. I subsequently took my little 10 card program right over to the line to the registrar's office where I dropped the class. I left the university at the end of my sophomore year. I didn't think I was learning anything to write about!

After quite a few adventures including moving 2000 miles across country on a whim and working in an emergency room I decided to use my science credits and go to nursing school. Funny thing about that. I needed all the same sciences for nursing that I needed for engineering but no guidance counselor ever steered me toward nursing.

I've loved nursing, and still do. I'll be applying for jobs as a nursing professor very soon. But I still want to be a writer, so for today, on my 50th birthday, I'm declaring myself a writer!