Dance

                                  Leaping into the air, gliding, soaring, feeling the rush of

wind on your face

            then back down again

where your intricate steps

are noiseless, never sounding

            then around and around

you pirouette, you can’t stop,

your feet are in constant

motion, you get hotter and

hotter, the stage lights become

unbearable

            then it’s over, all over

            another evening

            another performance

another feeling of victory.

I was very proud on that fall day, when for the first time, my words were published for others to read. Granted, the year was 1974, and I was 14, but that’s okay. It was published in my high school’s creative literary magazine, Gallimaufry, during the 1974-75 school year.

I couldn’t remember what Gallimaufry meant. It is “a confused jumble or medley of things.” The example provided online is “a glorious gallimaufry of childhood perceptions.” Each edition included poems, short stories, photography and drawings.

This single printed copy survived probably a dozen moves, pushed deeper and deeper into the pile of When I Was Young. I re-discovered it this summer.

I think it speaks to me because in 1974, I didn’t even know that I liked to write; I didn’t know that I harbored a secret dream to show my words to others; what an audacious thought.

I’m pretty sure I can connect where words on pages first brought me happiness. Like many of us, I read and read as a child; Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Swallows and Amazons, Swiss Family Robinson, Julie of the Wolves, The Secrets of Hidden Creek, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Count of Monte Christo and All Creatures Great and Small to name only a few of my favorites. As Anonymous writes in her diary Go Ask Alice:

“When I was hit by a car in the fifth grade and was in a cast for such a long time, I would have died without my books. Even now, I’m not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I’ve gotten from books.”

In my mind, I swapped lives with an interesting character all the time. I wrapped myself up in as many words and stories as I could to escape the escalating patterns of addiction and growing unhappiness present in my home.

I guess my poem showed me, for the first time, that it is possible; it is possible that a third party can read your words, like them and print them for others. For me, that’s an undisputable magic.

So, I immediately pursued that feeling…sort of. The next logical step would have been to major in English or creative writing in college, but I didn’t. I flirted with radio work instead and majored in Mass Media & Communications. Advertising intrigued me. I guess I was working on that “winning” connection; using just the right words (verbal and written) to win someone over; get their attention. The major involved writing, but it certainly wasn’t a publishable path.

I landed a few jobs, which included published material, but it was business writing; not that this type of experience can’t bring some magic. One time, in my free-lance reporting days, I had interviewed a cardiologist about his new practice, The Healthy Heart Center. It focused on additional testing besides cholesterol to assess heart disease risk. This was way back in 2001 (!) so I’m sure the tests are considered “old school” today.

Anyway, he was so pleased with how I presented the information he asked our publisher if he had permission to copy it to hand out to perspective patients so they could gain a better understanding about tests like the amino acid homocysteine and the lp(a) protein. It was incredibly gratifying that the doctor chose to “show my words to others.”

For almost ten years after that, I worked at Legacy.com. We didn’t write the obituaries. Families submitted them to the newspapers, and we placed them online for them. I shifted into a new genre of writing where it was still business writing (correspondence) but it was often writing filled with empathy.

Our team was dealing with people who were going through the worst days, weeks, and months of their lives with the death of a loved one. They contacted us through phone and email about a myriad of issues involving the obituary or Guest Book comments or additional choices for memorialization.

Some were angry, despondent, and sometimes threatening, while others had a peaceful or accepting demeanor; they knew the person they loved had been ill a long time, or that it was in God’s hands. We were always sympathetic with our words no matter which mood we faced. It meant something to help a person with kind words during their worst days; to feel that perspective. I tucked that experience into my broader, albeit eclectic, writing repertoire.

And now, most recently, that repertoire includes blogging where I have written over 150 stories. It’s just another chance to arrange the words I love in such a way so that I may connect with others.

It’s astonishing what a published teen poem can trigger. It led to an inextinguishable feeling to which I have faithfully followed (sometimes in a zig-zag way) and fulfilled. And if the poem hadn’t hinted at my future, I suspect something else would have. True passions will not be ignored.

There is one last piece towards an even happier heart and that is to publish a book with the help of a third party who reads it, likes it, and prints it for others to read. As with the poem which started it all, that would really complete the circle.