31

On July 25, 1988, a sniffle, some tears, and a plea emanated from a tucked-in-to-her-chin six year old me. “Tomorrow you’ll be seven years old!” my mother excitedly whispered as she kissed me goodnight. An anxious giggle, a what-gifts-await smirk, an I-can’t-wait-for-birthday-cake grin is what I think she was after. What she got instead was a sobbing, “but I don’t wanna be seven. I like being six.” This statement, this hope for reprieve, was quite amusing to my mom. Despite her apparent desire to laugh, she held me and assured me that everything would be okay, that seven would be just as good, if not better, than six. She then wiped my eyes, repositioned my covers, handed me my beloved Fuzzy Bear and left me until the morning. 

When I woke on July 26, 2011, I slid to the end of my bed, put my head in my hands and wept bitter “but I don’t wanna be 30” tears. Wet-faced and three decades old, I wished I was six again. I longed for someone to pass me a Kleenex, to make a promise that 30 is 29’s trump, to cradle me until I was sleepy enough to forget the terror of another year gone.  

As I welcome 31, I look back on this former self.  I don’t remember what was so fantastic about six.  I don’t know what was so scary about 30.  Like my mom, I tuck a chuckle behind a comforting embrace, pat myself on the back and say, “it really is okay, Jenny.  Seven was just as good as six and 30 wasn't so bad."  I then snuff the candles of those bitter birthdays and, with open mouth and nostrils flared, blow a wish that I will never again wish my days away.

On Writing Poorly

Sage author, Anne Lamott, irreverent, yet wise, states, “[the shitty first draft] is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place…You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page.  If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her…If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him.  Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means.”  Lamott later adds that what stands between the writer and this is perfectionism, or what she so aptly calls, “the voice of the oppressor.”

Somewhat recently, I was assigned a project that required me to color outside of the lines.  The instructions, quite contrary to the inner dialogue I was having with my kindergarten teacher, read: “using crayons, color this picture and disregard the lines.”  Taking a deep breath, I squeezed the colored wax between my fingers and began to press into the page.  When I finished, I laid my Crayolas aside, took the sheet in my hands and there saw a juggling clown with a perfectly coiffured poof of hair.  This was not my intention.  Mocking fuchsia flawlessness was not my goal.  Disregarding the lines, that was my agenda.

The inability to let go of control, even in something as small as this, is but one facet of my chronic neurosis.  Anne’s “oppressor,” a loud, obnoxious, and, let’s be frank, often smelly fellow, is a constant companion of mine, as well.  At each graze of the clown’s black outlines I heard him hollering.  At each hearing, I obeyed.

In a quite out of character turn of events, I found myself finally sticking it to the oppressor as I wrote my very own "shitty first draft."  He, bellyaching for an entire month as I participated in Camp Nanowrimo’s Novel in a Month challenge, grew more and more faint by the keystroke.  At the final word count, he was but an irritating ring in my ear.

In an effort to silence him for good, to put the proverbial sock in his sardonic mouth, I give you this, my blog.  I’ll make no promises that Mr. Poopy Pants won’t show up from time to time.  I will, however, promise you, that if he does, the oppressor will not overcome him.  Think of this as an exercise in abandon.  I invite you to join the romp, to color outside the lines, to find amidst the drivel something you never would have found by “more rational, grown-up means.”

Here’s to writing and Hear! Hear! to writing poorly!