Role Play: My Journey as a Writer

Of all the classes I took in college, my writing courses were some of my absolute favorites. I always felt like they stretched me and helped me grow not only as a writer, but as a person. In almost every writing class I took, at some point our professor would give us fifteen minutes of "freewrite" time and the same prompt: write about ten roles that define you.

At the beginning of my college career, I wrote down things like "friend, roommate, daughter, sister, reader, employee, writer, student." By the time I reached my last writing class, my main roles had shifted and now I added roles like "wife, return missionary, diabetic" to the top of the list. A year after I took my last writing class I added the role that defines my life now: "mom."

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I didn't let the role of mom rule my list. Last weekend I spent the entire weekend being "Scott's wife" and "Scott's best friend." It was glorious. We laughed together all day long, every day. I had great expectations about that trip bringing us closer--and as we left Denver, I thought that maybe I'd set my expectations too high. By the time we returned home, I realized that trip had accomplished more than what I wanted it to. Not only was I more motivated to be a better wife to my husband, I realized how much I loved (and missed) "the magic of ordinary days" as Kevin's mom. While we loved spending time together, it was clear that while the two of us could be a complete couple together, we could not be a complete family, not now anyway, without our daughter.

There are many roles in my life that have had to fall away lately so that I can be successful as "mom" and "wife" and sometimes "sister/daughter." I don't get to be as much of a friend as I wish I could be. I am no longer anyone's employee, and being a wife replaced the unique role of roommate a long time ago. As much as I loved my role as a student, I accepted that I needed to save graduate school for a time much later in my life, both for economic and personal reasons. This doesn't make me less of a learner--I still have that desire, and it still peeks through every time I look over a friend's resume, cover letter, or research paper. I make time for reading, but I don't have the energy to pick up books that are really going to make me think (not very often, anyway). But of all the roles I miss, "writer" is the one that has been the hardest to let go, and yet the most necessary to put on the shelf for a while.

Let me explain.

When I write, I can get wrapped up in a project and forget that I exist in a world that consists of more than just me, my experiences, my words, and my imagination. Can you imagine how a toddler could destroy a home if her mother/caretaker leaves reality for a couple of hours? Naptime just isn't long enough or safe enough some days.

Writing is a highly personal experience for me; I rarely share things until I feel they are "good enough" and even then, it is usually only my husband that gets to read them, because his opinion of me never changes. Occasionally, after something is really polished, I pass it along to my mom. That is why this blog has required me to be so brave; in a one-to-two hour naptime, I write down something, anything, and then when I hear her waking up, I have to push the "Publish" button and set my words free for the world to see, typos and all. Sometimes things come out sounding different than what I really mean. Sometimes my posts contradict themselves. Sometimes all I can see are the holes and the flaws in what I've written. Sometimes I don't have the right words to express what I am thinking, and sometimes I know the things I am really thinking would cause my readers to take offense, so I keep them to myself. I feel like that is limiting my writing, but I do it anyway, because I like to be a keeper of peace. My favorite writing professor told us that to write something that really matters to us, it will usually be a subject that will make us want to throw up just by thinking about it. I write about those kinds of things sometimes; rarely do they make it to my little blogging sphere.

The kind of writing I ultimately want to do involves hours of research and self-searching, sometimes traveling and sometimes adventuring. It involves planning, experiencing, outlining, drafting, revising, and courage.  I imagine it would take me years to get something ready for a publisher. I'm still not sure I have that in me.

I studied two genres of writing in college: creative nonfiction (think memoir) and fiction. I always thought fiction would be my niche, but I only actually got to take one fiction class. I did awesome in it. The first story I wrote was somewhat of a bust (it was a novel trying to be a short story and so it just didn't work), but it still won first place in the campus-wide writing contest sponsored by USU's newspaper. It wasn't ready for publication, but I turned it in anyway. Now I wish I hadn't. It needed more work, and had I spent time with it, I could have turned it into something much better. My second story, on the other hand, was a quiet piece about an elderly construction worker widower mourning the loss of his wife and his daughter who had inherited his "fix it" tendencies and spent too much of her time trying to "fix" her father. I wrote it for my grandparents. At the time, my Grandma Burningham had been a widow for over five years and every time I saw her she told me she wanted to die. She taught me the kind of pain that can happen when you are separated from your soul mate. My grandpa on the other side had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and those grandparents knew separation was coming. I saw my parents trying to take care of their parents through the fresh eyes of someone who had only been married for less than a year. And from that, and three hours in the computer lab in the basement of the English building, came a nearly-perfect short story that earned me an unquestionable A from one of my hardest professors, no final project required, it was that good. That story, on the other hand, won only second place in the official campus-sponsored writing contest. I knew why. Ryan Keeper's story had sex and immorality and swearing and all that "real world drama" that seems to so impress writing professors who spend most of their time teaching LDS kids from Utah who don't touch alcohol or drugs and have little-to-no experience with the emotional consequences of one-night stands. I knew the judges appreciated my story, but I also knew that if I really wanted to get noticed, quickly, on a more-than-just-a-university-undergrad writing sphere, I would need to write about the things Ryan wrote about, and writing about those things just didn't interest me.

In the semester after taking my fiction class, I ended up in an advanced creative non-fiction writing class again. I'd taken the same class from the same professor three years before, but I felt that a mission and terminal diagnosis (I will have diabetes until I die) and marriage later, I would have a completely different experience in the exact same class. When I took the class the first time, my mother read my end-of-semester-product essay and told me that even though my writing took me to great and new places, it always ended up leading me back home. I never forgot that comment, because that was when I realized that when I wanted to write about things that really mattered, I had to write about things that were real to me, whether they were personal essays or fiction.

So when I took the class a second time and we were required to write a braided essay (meaning weaving two or three different subjects/strands together into one cohesive whole), I decided to write about three things that were very important to me. First, for my travel strand, I decided to focus on my great-great-grandfather Dennis and his life, which was adventurous and tragic all at the same time. My husband and mother accompanied me on a trip to Montana in the middle of a February snowstorm just to do research. The three of us will never regret that trip, ever. The second strand had to be a personal strand, sharing some of our story. I decided to write about my diabetes diagnosis, which included my life as a missionary and falling in love. The third strand was related, researched, and was the thing that made me want to throw up. I wrote about the risks of diabetic pregnancy and my desires and fears of becoming a mother. I worked on that essay for hours. It ended up being over 50 pages and still wasn't finished when I was done, but I was in a much better place personally. As I go back and read it now, I see the foreshadowing: the scenes with my Aunt Betty, talking about her father Dennis as the Montana snow fell outside her apartment window; she passed away a few months later. The mentions of my grandfather's cancer diagnosis and fight and his teasing; I wanted to have a baby before he passed away, but we didn't make it that far. I got pregnant a few short weeks after he was buried. I did all that research about diabetic pregnancies; I knew everything that could go wrong. I think it helped prepare me for the thing that did unexpectedly go wrong, leading to Kevin's premature birth and the month we spent in the hospital with her.

And now, two years later, I want to write about my life as it is now: the experiences of becoming a mother and the struggles of our marriage, the things I've given up and the things I've gained. The blessings of waking up to my daughter kicking her feet against the crib slats, of gagging as I clean out the stale milk from old sippy cups, of tickle fights and laughter and watching her copy my every move. I want to write about following my husband to the Salt Lake Valley and learning to lean on my in-laws where I used to lean on my parents for the day-to-day things we need help with. I want to write about watching my dad become a grandpa, finding his true calling in life and the way she strokes his mustache and cuddles up with him and how he calls just to say he misses her and can we please come back soon. I want to write about how different my marriage is now from where we started three years ago, about the things that we are working toward: a house, grad school for him, more children, a career job, feeling settled. I want to write about how thinking about having a second child terrifies me and fills me with desire at the same time.

I want to write about the things that matter, the things that take me home.

My aunts gave me a sign for our wedding that I keep above the door, next to my Texan welcome sign, our key/mail holder, and our family calendar, where I can see it all day, every day. It says, "Home is where your story begins."

It reminds me that even though I have put my writing career on the backburner so that I can cut up pears and make peanut butter sandwiches and do laundry and  wash dishes and change diapers and play with blocks and read the same board book fifteen times in a week, I am spending each day doing research, gaining experience. I am doing more than it appears I am doing, I am filling more than one role.

I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a sister, a daughter, a friend. I am a return missionary. I am a diabetic. I am a homemaker.  I am a reader.

And, on Thursdays, I am a writer.

Thanks for reading.

In Her Shoes

 

My daughter has a shoe fettish. This has only been known to us for a few weeks--but this "phase" came on hard and strong. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she isn't just "toddling" now--she's full on walking almost to the point of running.

In fact, "shoe" was her third word, behind "Daddy" and "Papa"...don't feel bad for me though, this week she's actually started saying "Maaaaama"--in a sad and mournful tone, but "Mama" just the same. Yup. I'm her fourth word. This girl has her priorities in line: Daddy, Grandpa, Shoes, Mom.

Everything she needs in life, in four words.

Every morning, after she finishes her breakfast and sometimes before she is even dressed for the day, she brings me her shoes (whichever pair she finds first) and sits down on my lap so I can put them on her. Then, as soon as they are velcroed or snapped, she gets up and takes off and for the next 30 minutes I listen to the slip-slap of her soles on the hardwood, as she walks back and forth, usually bringing me a pair of my shoes in the process.

It's as if she is trying to say, "It's day, Mama! It's time to get up and go!"

My daughter is a mover. She always has been. She was overactive in the womb and has never really been docile, except maybe for the three weeks she spent in the NICU, and even then she astounded us on a daily basis.

And so I know it bothers her that I am very content being the type of person who likes to sit back, relax, and watch and would choose a day at home over a day out and about, running around.

Lately, we've had to compromise. I get her out of the house once or twice a day if she will sit down and watch a couple of episodes of Arthur with me on Netflix.

Kevin's shoes must be very important in both of our lives, since last night I dreamed I was wearing her glittery blue plastic sandals in Disneyland.  My "dream doctor" husband told me my dream was a result of Kevin trying to put her shoes on me all day, " but also it is a way that you are remembering her while on vacation."  Maybe it was a way of my inner Jiminy Cricket telling me not to feel guilty that Scott and I are taking off for the weekend and leaving her behind... or maybe it was to remind me that becoming a mother means you never really "get away" from your children. They are always there, bringing you a pair of their shoes and reminding you that they are already learning how to walk away from you, and someday, their feet and bigger shoes will take them far and away and there is nothing you can do about it. Along with learning to walk, they start to learn that they are their own person, and those shoes epitomize that.

I probably walked a mile in my daughters shoes in my dream last night. Every day she tries to put mine on but doesn't get farther than a few inches. And somehow I find it funny that every time I return to my parents home, I almost always slip on a pair of my mom's shoes to do something or another: take a diaper out the garbage, visit the dog or the swingset, unload luggage from our car.

I'm still learning to wear my mother's shoes, swollen summer feet and all.

And thus, with a pair of size 4 jellie sandals and some old, blue, size 10 flip flops from Old Navy, my daughter and I, as the next generation, have started together down the long, long road of trying to understand one another and learning to let each other go.

Melt My Heart

There are some things in life that just make my heart a little melty, like mini marshmallows in a frothy mug of hot chocolate, or a popsicle in the hands of a toddler in the middle of a summer afternoon.

Like that moment, sometime after 5:30 pm, when my husband finally walks in the door and Kevin gets so excited, all her limbs start moving, and he looks at me, and then at her. I love that moment. I love what a wonderful father he is for her. I love to listen to him singing her lullabies, and peeking into her nightlight-lit room, seeing her cuddled up on his lap, him rocking her in the same chair where his parents rocked him as a small child. I love how sometimes, she just wants him. Most of the time, I just want him too.

Like last night, at 1:00 am, when the teething baby hadn't cried herself to sleep again and I got up with her and all she wanted was to be held close, her head on my shoulder and her arm wrapped around my bicep.  To trade sleep for that...well, last night it just wasn't worth it. There is something so special about the stillness of midnight. When I was younger, that time used to scare me. Now, there are no monsters for me, only bad dreams and teething pain to be chased away, and loves to give, and cuddles to savor from the child that doesn't cuddle during the daylight.

Like yesterday, when I watched Kevin playing with Scott's mom, and I realized how blessed she has been to have four loving people, totally devoted to her. I love seeing little bits of them in her--the constant chatter that she gets from Scott's father, the need to use her hands that she gets from Scott's mother, the creativity and love of books that comes from my mother, the sneaky smile and love of laughter that is so my father.

 

Like this afternoon, when my parents came by to visit, and my dad just couldn't let his granddaughter sleep any longer, so we went to check on her. Her hands were curled up by her face and both of her feet were sticking out of her crib slats. She was outer than out. So I left her there, with him watching. Miraculously, only a few minutes later, he walked out with a barely-awake-but-awake-enough-to-not-be-in-her-crib-anymore granddaughter.

But the moment that really melted my heart happened one second after this picture was taken,

when my daughter kissed her Grandpa on the cheek for the very first time, and he smiled like he'd just been given the biggest honor of his life.

Perhaps he had.

Just Like Mommy

I feel like life this week has been a series of lovely moments that have prompted me to ask two questions:

1. When did my daughter become her own little person?
2. Why does she want that little person to be so much like me?

On Tuesday morning, I woke up to the sounds of small, pajama-clad feet making serious contact with crib slats. This surprised me because I am usually up before Kevin--I love those 20-30 minutes of "me time" before I have to face the day. I drug myself out of bed, said a short prayer (aka plea for help), used the bathroom and then decided I was awake enough to attempt taking care of the toddler.

And as I walked in to her room, still very much resembling a zombie, my daughter started bouncing on her mattress, clapping her hands, and saying "YAY!"

I'm not sure whether she was more excited about her freedom from her crib or seeing me, but my psyche told me to just go along with the fact that seeing me somehow earned enough applause and cheering to rival the Golden Globe Awards.

That small, lovely moment (before I changed her poopy diaper) has had me smiling all week.

And yet, I find it bittersweet that each day when I go in to pick her up from her crib, I find someone new there. Each day she is different, changing, growing. Two weeks ago, she could only walk a few steps without help. Now, she can walk anywhere she chooses, but she still decides to come and take my hand and lead me wherever she wants to go. Sometimes this means leading me away from hampers of unfolded laundry, or a half-unloaded dishwasher, or more often than not, a half-composed email to my husband. I have realized, however, that most of the time she is right in that where ever she leads is more important: to the fridge to get her sippy cup so we can settle in for a cuddle, to her room to read some books, to the window to see the birds outside. I have also learned that this week is only the beginning of her leading me, teaching me, reminding me what the most important task of the day is.

And some days, that means handing her the deodorant after I've put it on in the morning and watching her try to rub it underneath her arms (the cap on, of course). And some days it means she pulls out my journal and the pen I keep in the wire binding and pretends to write on the lined pages. And some days it means she'll only eat her toast if it is a full piece like mine. And some days it means handing her a washcloth for her to "fold" while I am doing laundry.

Her entire goal in life at the moment is to be just like Mommy. 
Flattering, yes. 
Daunting, very.

Thus she has defined my entire goal in life at the moment: to be a better person, so my little, not-quite-three-foot-tall reflection is someone we both can be proud of.

Rinda's Reads for May: Two Authors

My reading list wasn't super varied this month...basically, I just wanted some nice stories I could sit back and relax with during my travels. That lead to me reading about six books, all by only two authors:

Carla Kelly
I recommended one of her books last month (Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand) and I think that is still my favorite of all the books I've read by Carla Kelly to this point. This month I read Borrowing Light and Enduring Light, a series about a chef who goes to work on a middle-of-nowhere Wyoming ranch. They were pretty good--nothing spectacular, but enough to keep my attention through two cross-country plane rides. Here is my disclaimer about Carla Kelly: if you are looking for non-trashy romance, make sure you read ONLY the books that have been published while she has been living in Utah! In other words, if Deseret Book sells it, you are okay. I made the mistake of grabbing one of her older titles on the library shelves and boy was I surprised...

Sarah Addison Allen
Here is my disclaimer about Allen: she definitely isn't an LDS author, and so her books aren't 100% clean. I read three of them this month and had to skip 2-3 pages in all three, but that is all. Of the three I read, The Peach Keeper was probably my favorite, with Garden Spells and The Girl Who Chased the Moon close behind. Her books combine Southern charm with a bit of the mystical and strong, somewhat quirky characters with strong plot lines.

So there you go for May. I only have 40 pages left in my first read for June and I have to say, I have highly enjoyed it, and it has been a little more intellectually stimulating that my May reads.

Here is Kevin's pick of the month:

Just What Mama Needs by Sharlee Glenn


My mom gave me this book for Christmas and I've pulled it out a couple of times in the last month to read to Kevin. Each time I was reminding how much I love it! The adorable story tells about Abby's week of different characters: On Monday she is a pirate, on Tuesday she is a detective, on Wednesday she is a cowboy, and so on. Each of Abby's "characters" is just what her Mama needs on that particular day. At the end of the week, Abby discovers that the person her Mama needs most is for Abby to just be herself.

Bonus: the book is by a Utah author!

Out of Commission

Here is an official apology for missing last week's post:

I am sincerely sorry to the dozen of you who have been consistently checking my blog for the past few days to see where my missing Thursday post and promised bonus post and not-so-popular reading list for May went. They don't exist yet. But thank you for your support.

Here is an official excuse:

Last week, sickness hit our house. Kevin and I were scheduled to go up to Richmond on Tuesday and that trip got pushed back to Wednesday. I thought we were over the worst. I was wrong. On Thursday, my youngest sibling graduated from Sky View High School, number four of four. Yay for my parents! Kevin was on her worst possible behavior. By the time we got back to my parent's home, I was tired. And I snapped. And after I snapped, I didn't feel like pulling myself together to write a blog post as I'd planned. So I decided to put it off to Friday. This was a bad idea. On Friday, I woke up with Kevin at six am. We both went back to bed around eight am. I woke up fifteen minutes later feeling nauseous. The rest of the day became a constant battle with the bathroom and my blood sugar (the stomach flu with diabetes is its own kind of torture--more on that below also). I was out of commission for the rest of the day (okay, more like the rest of the weekend, hence why I am posting on Monday). Also, because I know my family was probably wondering due to my highly-emotional and constantly-puking state, no. I. Am. Not. Pregnant.

Here are some official thoughts on said excuses:

Attending my brother's high school graduation brought back mixed memories for me. I remembered attending my older brother's graduation ten years ago and watching him with his friends making all these beautiful memories and thinking I couldn't wait to have those with my friends. I cried at Ben's graduation. By the time my own graduation rolled around two years later, I was so ready to be DONE and move on. There were no tears to be found. I had grown apart from friends I was once close to, grown tired of my busy life of extracurriculars and none of my service to the school really being appreciated (the hundreds of barely-skimmed"senior editions" of the school newspaper that I'd spent a full three months working on by myself as a gift to my classmates in the trash cans at school were a testament of this), and grown disillusioned with the "magic" of high school. I just wanted to be done with it all. So, after the vice principal (to whom I'd personally delivered each monthly edition of the school newspaper) pronounced my name "Miranda Birmingham" (bless my auto-correct for telling me I spelled that last name wrong), I tossed my cap in the air and walked away for good.

And it was good.

College was awesome. I made lasting friendships and courageous decisions and became a person who not only had much better haircuts, but a much more personally satisfying life. Sure, I enjoyed catching up with my high school friends every so often, attending missionary farewells and homecomings and occasional wedding receptions, but more often that not a trip back into "high school world" resulted in a conversation with my best friend about how we were so glad we weren't there anymore.

Don't get me wrong.

I had a great high school experience.

I made great friends.

I did some great things that opened great doors when I reached the university.

I have very few regrets about how I lived my high school life.

But I still do not ever, ever want to go back to living it.

Or at least I thought I didn't, until I heard the familiar strains of the Sky View High School school song...and the memories came flooding back...sitting in the stands at football and basketball games and assemblies. Singing it in a friend's basement with the debate team after we celebrated yet another state championship. Decorating the walls of the old gym for the homecoming dance to match the lyrics--the mountain peaks and the starry skies and the lit up "SV" we had custom made to match the one on the mountain. And I realized that I did miss that song.

I watched my little brother, his arms around two little girls in white gowns, his BFF with the afro and the scholarship because he is going to save USU's basketball team next year on one side of the girls and the half-Asian BFF I didn't know had a real first name (I'd always known him as Tivo, apparently his name from a middle-school Spanish class) on the other side, other best friend RJ having gotten the short end of the stick and being stuck on the row behind them. They had arms wrapped around each other and swayed back and forth and I teared up, because by the time they got to those last strains, the lyrics that were supposed to teach us that friendship really was the best gift Sky View could give us, I remembered that Sky View did give me that. Maybe not the way I expected it, but it was still there. Emails and comments about my blog posts and writing. Feelings of happiness every time I see another facebook picture showing an engagement, a wedding, a new baby, a graduation. And best of all, that one friend who thought I was so silly for falling for her cousin but  has stuck by me anyway for the last eight years, through moves and missions and miles and more rounds of PMS than either of us want to admit.

And later that night, as I was struggling to fall asleep without my husband in my old yellow-walled bedroom, I cracked open the hope chest I received as a graduation present from my parents and pulled out my old photo album and a white binder. In the binder I found every certificate I was ever given from middle school to the end of high school. I hope my children never see this binder, because I don't want them to feel they have to live up to their nerd mother: honor roll certificates, department awards, 4.0 recognition, transcripts that only have two minus signs and not a "B" (or anything lower) in sight. I probably should burn it, just so they don't feel bad when they don't recognize me as the same person who received all those go-getter awards (because sometimes these days I can't even get out of my pajamas before two o'clock in the afternoon). I started feeling very distanced from that girl who had so much going for her.

But then I found two unexpected (and somewhat out of place) papers in there. One of them was a short, paragraph-long essay I wrote in middle school about how my friends were my anti-drug. The true gem of this paper was the eighth-grade picture of myself and my friend Katrina (easily this blog's number one fan) pasted to it. I couldn't stop smiling when I found it. Oh, we looked so awkward...but we also looked so happy. That's a rare feat for young teenage girls!

What was the second paper, you ask? Well, actually, it was an envelope. From the Office of the First Presidency in Salt Lake City, UT. And inside that envelope, in a page protector, was a piece of off-white fancy paper with the most important letter I've EVER gotten written on it, signed by a man I believe to be a prophet of God. And that paper changed my life.

And I realized I still have a lot going for me, because I still have a lot of that girl in me, the one who just never knew when to stop and step back. I might not be able to keep up her crazy pace, but I still have all those lessons she learned, all those friends she made, all that knowledge that helped her realize that the only thing she really wanted to do with her life was the dream she was living, the one breathing heavily in the pack-n-play in the next room.