Submitted for your approval

I grew up watching those classic black and white TV shows. . .watching Rod Serling surreptitiously glide onto the screen of our circa 1960's style television set, cigarette poised so sophisticatedly between his fingers, submitting plots for our approval.  I loved it; I loved the thrill of the allegorical theater Twilight Zone provided to my pre-teen imagination.  But even more than that, I loved the escape into the "what if's" and the "what could be's" of our oftentimes indiscriminate decisions. 

The world was so different back then, not just for me, but I think for many people who were born before the 1980's.  It just seemed more simple, less stressful, innocent.  I could ride my bike around the neighborhood during the summer months until the street lights would shutter their dim fingers of light onto the blacktop road that lead home.  I was never afraid; I knew all our neighbors, and as I would ride my bike along I would think about what it would be like to grow up and learn to drive a car (a much cooler prospect to me than my current mode of transportation, a dark blue Schwinn Stingray).   I used to dream about what I would become.  I loved stories and I thought that some day I wanted to write wonderful stories that would thrill my captive audience of readers.  And why wouldn't I think I could be the next Hemingway or Fitzgerald?  Everything seemed within reach. . .nothing was out of the realm of possibility.

But things change as so often we realize as we grow older.  I went to college, got a degree in English, went on to get my MA in literature only to have life lob a volley of circumstances that pulled me away. . .away from my dreams and into a far less idyllic reality.  So, here I am staring at middle age full in it's weathered face and asking myself, "Where did you go?"  Is it just me or did the tempo of life start to take on a more rapid pace from a slow waltz to a frenetic quick step?  So, what to do. . .I've decided to change the trajectory of my life and step back into a place that brings me joy: telling stories.

I think some of the best stories are the ones that aren't conjured up in the imagination, but rather are lived through -- hardily and with conviction.  These are the stories that remind us to laugh boisterously at the hilarity of life's circumstances or take us to those darker places of great sorrow, loss and pain.  The beauty of living is in the sharing of our lives with one another.  So, I submit to you, dear reader, my life in words.  It is not the life of a great person, just an ordinary one.  This is for my children and their children and the children who will someday only know of me as a name from a nearly forgotten lineage. . .nearly, but not entirely forgotten because words live on forever.