Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Writing Anew

I have printed out my blog and am categorizing the items according to topics.  I want to merge the beginning of my book into a semblance, which allows me to face my past, without getting lost in what I have already written.  I want the ebb and flow of my emotions to level out so I may be more objective in my writing.  I have ridden the roller coaster so much, that I am now in therapy to help me discover how to slow down and enjoy the scenery in my life.

Charles Dickens wrote about his life by sharing the stories of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and others.  Hard Times, by Dickens is a wonderful expose on economies. I plan to reread Dickens again as I find his writing is a wonderful methodology for getting rid of baggage.  So too I plan on re-reading Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain, again as my son and his friends from Fowlerville fit the mold of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. My son and I had a rocky relationship when my ex-husband left.  The two of us had to recover in our own way.  I truly believe a family needs a man in the house because a teenage boy, like mine, was not easy to handle.

I had a wonderful neighbor who was Ojibwe that helped me with my kids when I didn't know what to do.  She painted the most beautiful artwork on a box that she gave to my son of a wolf and the moon. She also did paintings on deer skin.  She wove dream catchers and did many drawings that she gave to the "Livingston Parent Journal," in Fowlerville.  She couldn't make money either because of medicaid and medicare.

That is the sad truth artists are always working, but artists with disabilities have to manage the money carefully.  She had dyslexia like my son and encouraged me to get legal pads for my son because the print shows up better on yellow lined paper.  I would sit side by side with my son as he struggled to write his assignments on the computer.  Cuss words were always a part of his assignment as it took him awhile to get started.  It was something I knew I had to patient with because we would be at the Howell Library and I would let him cuss all he wanted to by typing out the words, but not printing them.  It would take awhile, but he would settle down and begin writing his English assignments that were excellent stories, by the way.

I sometimes taught both my children because the school was so desperate for substitute teachers that the office would tell me just teach your kids, in their classes anyways, so I did.  My daughter had a natural aptitude for school.  My son was bright, but like Huck Finn he loved to play and skip school. He was bright and managed to talk his friend into mowing the lawn, for me and planned on sharing the $20.00 with his friend, while doing none of the work.  I couldn't allow my son to make all the money, when I realized what my son was doing, so I gave his friend all the money.  This incident reminded me of how Tom Sawyer got his friends to paint the fence white, while he reaped the benefits of a lax lifestyle.

I know there were many obstacles in my marriage, but we always stuck together as a family and I was devastated when my marriage fell apart.  More on this at another time.  I am starting writing anew because when my roommate dropped dead, I threw out twenty plus years of writing for the local newspapers.  I also threw out all my awards.  I was simply overwhelmed.  I may write to my friend Cindy Denby who was a local representative, from Handy Township,  and see if I can replace some of these awards.  More on the awards later.

The funny thing is I was either writing about the police or riding in their cars for wellness checks.  I had so many secrets, I was often overwhelmed.  I plan on writing this section for my book.  For the time being; however, I am just glad to be writing again.  I'll have to assemble some of my articles off the internet and take time to acquire them from microfilm at the Howell Library and see if my editor in Fowlerville can help me as well as my friend Jon King at WHMI radio.  I don't know if I want to be an independent contract reporter again or just write my book.  I may do some writing for the Flint Journal, a much bigger paper than I've worked with.  Time will tell.

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