Post by Robin Leigh Anderson on Jan 16, 2008 22:41:11 GMT -8
This won Second Place for Nonfiction in the conference contest at SBWC 1997.
The contest 'tag' was MY MISTAKE, you will see how I included this in my piece.
December 24, 1957
Unca Walter gave me this pink poodle diary that matches my picture album. Mommy says
this pen is special. It has my name on it. A Cross pen. Silver. A silver cross for Christmas. I
opened the lock. The empty page called to me. I can say anything I want. I can put my words on
every page. Every page is mine.
April 20, 1967
All the years I’ve been writing in these, and I never thought words could fail me. I can’t
begin to describe what I am feeling. Everything happened so fast at three o’clock this morning.
Huge piercing blue eyes just like his grandpa’s, ten tiny fingers, ten chubby toes. I have never felt
skin so smooth, so pink and perfect. I am still tingly from the spinal anesthesia, and the nurse had
to help me hold him, but when I looked into that precious round little face, I suddenly understood the
universe. I need to have a few more minutes with him before the family descends and starts telling
me all the mistakes I will make with him. Was he worth the anxiety and pain of an emergency c.
section? As his great-grandma would say, Ya, sure, you betcha!
April 20, 1969
I made it back from Vietnam---15 months in Hell---just in time for my little sweetheart’s
second birthday. I don’t want to take my arms from around him. No one knew I was there, no one
but Mom and my ex. No one understood me before, they certainly wouldn’t understand this. My
knee, my shoulder, my wounds still bother me, but not as much as the pain in my soul. Mother is still
furious with me that I can’t continue in nursing, after my walk in Hell. I have to do what is right for
me, can’t anybody understand? I’d rather scrub floors than put myself through the medical
establishment ringer. Now here comes all the advice about how to live my life. AGAIN. I made it
back in one piece. I have my son. I can figure out the rest as I go along.
April 28, 1975
I don’t know how long we flew, thank God for a CIA agent with connections to a nonstop
flight. Why did I go back? Oh, God, Mikey, you saved my life at the cost of your own as Saigon
came apart at the seams. I will carry you deep in my soul forever, my stalwart Marine, the one true
and now last love of my life. I can’t look at my own blue-eyed, towheaded child for seeing the
similarity. I don’t know what to do. As usual the family is bristling with unsolicited advice. It
probably isn’t possible for a 26-year-old to run away from home…is it?
December 31, 1975
The horror of this year is behind me. I won’t even play Scarlett and think about it
tomorrow. Wasn’t it Grant who said, war is hell? I have four diaries full of it and I am thinking of
burning them. I can’t believe what I found when I unpacked into the new apartment. After all these
years I still have that quilted hot pink plastic diary with the funky little padlock that couldn’t keep
out a flea. This pen, I have carried this pen all over the world with me. It has written hundreds of
thousands of words. Too bad only my eyes have seen them.
Stop dreaming, they always said, be practical. These were the people I was supposed to
trust, to obey. Fine, I just finished school for the second time, doesn’t that set the family’s hair on
fire, and again I walk the practical path. The good solid boring bookkeeper. There go the voices
again, a bookkeeper can always get a job.
Wait until those voices find out in what industry this little accounting drone will start
working next month. It is ironic that I can write like this, in secret, as I have all my stories, but could
I practice my opera in secret? So the music stopped, too. Ok, fine, I may be on the other side of the
vocal chords, but wait’ll they get a load of the five shaggy-haired Brits I’ll be calling boss for the next
300 days!
May 28, 1999
Over 35 journals, a couple hundred stories, 8 full-length novels, I couldn’t even hazard a
guess at how many poems and songs and articles and blah blah blah. Nobody could understand how
four filing cabinets could be full of things I created for my own amusement. Hey, those clean black
lines on that crisp white page called to me 42 ½ years ago. I never stopped dreaming. I just never
admitted it.
This morning I stood alone at the foot of the family plot in Choteau Cemetery. The small
square of new sod covering Dad’s ashes was in place today, the newly engraved Norwegian bluestone
in place beside the sod. That fresh mountain air, wow, I remembered why it’s call The Big Sky,
so clear and blue and stretching forever in any direction. Snow on Ear Mountain and the China
Wall Range, in May. It should have been a delight growing up in a place like this, except for my
unfortunate choice of chromosomes, having been the daughter you never wanted, Dad.
Fifty years. For fifty years, at the back of my head, I heard those voices that fed my
subconscious with the perfect excuse to never try. I thought families were supposed to support and
encourage? Who was it who said something about whose family put the fun in dysfunctional?
The second headstone, hey, big brother, I was only Sweet Sixteen, following you around all
my life like an adoring puppy, you couldn’t leave your little sister with one positive word before the
cancer claimed you. The third stone, well, Mom, I’m sorry I wasn’t a popular, pretty cheerleader
and senior class prez like you. It must have been tough having to try to explain the clumsy, homely,
chubby little introvert to all your vivacious friends. So much for that warm-and-fuzzy mother-
daughter thing. I have now put in the ground the last of those voices.
June 23, 1999
I was just re-reading about my final trip home. It’s hard to fathom why anyone would
deliberately discourage a child. How did I allow it to continue as an adult? Teddy called me tonight,
and he was surprised to find me home. Tonight’s main speaker I had heard recently, so I gave
myself permission to go home and collapse for the evening. He wanted to see how the writer’s
conference was going and to wish me strength, which he knows I always need. 20 years we’ve been
best friends and he knows what I need on so many levels. We talked about some of the
workshops, and as we were getting ready to say goodnight, he said, in that casual way of his, keep
dreaming and be practical. If I had not been wearing the hands-free headset, I would’ve dropped the
phone! Why had none of those voices said to me, keep dreaming and be practical!?
My mistake was in believing I should listen to any voice but mine. Hear it roar.
The contest 'tag' was MY MISTAKE, you will see how I included this in my piece.
Diary
December 24, 1957
Unca Walter gave me this pink poodle diary that matches my picture album. Mommy says
this pen is special. It has my name on it. A Cross pen. Silver. A silver cross for Christmas. I
opened the lock. The empty page called to me. I can say anything I want. I can put my words on
every page. Every page is mine.
April 20, 1967
All the years I’ve been writing in these, and I never thought words could fail me. I can’t
begin to describe what I am feeling. Everything happened so fast at three o’clock this morning.
Huge piercing blue eyes just like his grandpa’s, ten tiny fingers, ten chubby toes. I have never felt
skin so smooth, so pink and perfect. I am still tingly from the spinal anesthesia, and the nurse had
to help me hold him, but when I looked into that precious round little face, I suddenly understood the
universe. I need to have a few more minutes with him before the family descends and starts telling
me all the mistakes I will make with him. Was he worth the anxiety and pain of an emergency c.
section? As his great-grandma would say, Ya, sure, you betcha!
April 20, 1969
I made it back from Vietnam---15 months in Hell---just in time for my little sweetheart’s
second birthday. I don’t want to take my arms from around him. No one knew I was there, no one
but Mom and my ex. No one understood me before, they certainly wouldn’t understand this. My
knee, my shoulder, my wounds still bother me, but not as much as the pain in my soul. Mother is still
furious with me that I can’t continue in nursing, after my walk in Hell. I have to do what is right for
me, can’t anybody understand? I’d rather scrub floors than put myself through the medical
establishment ringer. Now here comes all the advice about how to live my life. AGAIN. I made it
back in one piece. I have my son. I can figure out the rest as I go along.
April 28, 1975
I don’t know how long we flew, thank God for a CIA agent with connections to a nonstop
flight. Why did I go back? Oh, God, Mikey, you saved my life at the cost of your own as Saigon
came apart at the seams. I will carry you deep in my soul forever, my stalwart Marine, the one true
and now last love of my life. I can’t look at my own blue-eyed, towheaded child for seeing the
similarity. I don’t know what to do. As usual the family is bristling with unsolicited advice. It
probably isn’t possible for a 26-year-old to run away from home…is it?
December 31, 1975
The horror of this year is behind me. I won’t even play Scarlett and think about it
tomorrow. Wasn’t it Grant who said, war is hell? I have four diaries full of it and I am thinking of
burning them. I can’t believe what I found when I unpacked into the new apartment. After all these
years I still have that quilted hot pink plastic diary with the funky little padlock that couldn’t keep
out a flea. This pen, I have carried this pen all over the world with me. It has written hundreds of
thousands of words. Too bad only my eyes have seen them.
Stop dreaming, they always said, be practical. These were the people I was supposed to
trust, to obey. Fine, I just finished school for the second time, doesn’t that set the family’s hair on
fire, and again I walk the practical path. The good solid boring bookkeeper. There go the voices
again, a bookkeeper can always get a job.
Wait until those voices find out in what industry this little accounting drone will start
working next month. It is ironic that I can write like this, in secret, as I have all my stories, but could
I practice my opera in secret? So the music stopped, too. Ok, fine, I may be on the other side of the
vocal chords, but wait’ll they get a load of the five shaggy-haired Brits I’ll be calling boss for the next
300 days!
May 28, 1999
Over 35 journals, a couple hundred stories, 8 full-length novels, I couldn’t even hazard a
guess at how many poems and songs and articles and blah blah blah. Nobody could understand how
four filing cabinets could be full of things I created for my own amusement. Hey, those clean black
lines on that crisp white page called to me 42 ½ years ago. I never stopped dreaming. I just never
admitted it.
This morning I stood alone at the foot of the family plot in Choteau Cemetery. The small
square of new sod covering Dad’s ashes was in place today, the newly engraved Norwegian bluestone
in place beside the sod. That fresh mountain air, wow, I remembered why it’s call The Big Sky,
so clear and blue and stretching forever in any direction. Snow on Ear Mountain and the China
Wall Range, in May. It should have been a delight growing up in a place like this, except for my
unfortunate choice of chromosomes, having been the daughter you never wanted, Dad.
Fifty years. For fifty years, at the back of my head, I heard those voices that fed my
subconscious with the perfect excuse to never try. I thought families were supposed to support and
encourage? Who was it who said something about whose family put the fun in dysfunctional?
The second headstone, hey, big brother, I was only Sweet Sixteen, following you around all
my life like an adoring puppy, you couldn’t leave your little sister with one positive word before the
cancer claimed you. The third stone, well, Mom, I’m sorry I wasn’t a popular, pretty cheerleader
and senior class prez like you. It must have been tough having to try to explain the clumsy, homely,
chubby little introvert to all your vivacious friends. So much for that warm-and-fuzzy mother-
daughter thing. I have now put in the ground the last of those voices.
June 23, 1999
I was just re-reading about my final trip home. It’s hard to fathom why anyone would
deliberately discourage a child. How did I allow it to continue as an adult? Teddy called me tonight,
and he was surprised to find me home. Tonight’s main speaker I had heard recently, so I gave
myself permission to go home and collapse for the evening. He wanted to see how the writer’s
conference was going and to wish me strength, which he knows I always need. 20 years we’ve been
best friends and he knows what I need on so many levels. We talked about some of the
workshops, and as we were getting ready to say goodnight, he said, in that casual way of his, keep
dreaming and be practical. If I had not been wearing the hands-free headset, I would’ve dropped the
phone! Why had none of those voices said to me, keep dreaming and be practical!?
My mistake was in believing I should listen to any voice but mine. Hear it roar.