I’m in my home office getting ready to hit the ‘submit button’ on the computer screen.
Submitting my work for our local Memoir Showcase is as scary for me today as it was that first
time I submitted work in June of 2017. At that time my Memoir was simply an outline, a
dream.
I have weeded through several scenes saved in my documents, trimmed and edited
a few and now decided on the ones to submit. But there are other scenes I read through
and ponder. Here is the scene that while originally writing it, I often had to stop typing and
go outside to stare at the sky. Huge gulping sobs came from deep inside of me as I trembled on
my patio. I was inconsolable. I had written about the birth of my first son in the sweltering heat|
of New Orleans in 1967. Remembering that night, alone and petrified, knowing I would have to
leave my baby there was overwhelming. Writing it was excruciating. My heart ached for that
young girl.
Another scene makes me cringe while reading it. This scene with my ex husband on a
miserable hot steamy night in Mississippi brought me to my knees when I first wrote it. I
remember unchecked tears streaming down my face as I tapped away at my keyboard, my
shoulders feeling as if someone was beating on them. His angry face still as real today as it was
on that night over fifty years ago. A black fury overcame me as I pushed away from my desk.
How dare he treat me like that? I questioned all these years later. I wanted to hug that sad
young woman who thought this was to be her life forever.
Ah, and here is the scene when I meet my beloved 2nd husband. Once again the day was
in late summer. The sun is hot, my sons are there racing for soccer balls and my life is about
to change in ways I would never have been able to predict. I love this scene and remember as I
typed it how my heart beat reliving those first words, those first moments that
would result in a love so beyond reason that it would knock to me to my knees and take me to
heights I had never dreamed. I rewrote that scene over and over and loved my husband more
with each revised piece. I wanted to tell that young woman ‘you are thinking with your heart
and it is the smartest thing you will ever do.’
Another scene makes me laugh out loud. Me in my thirties, flying across the Coronado
Bridge in my yellow Volkswagen bug stuffed to the brim with our five kids along with towels
and beach toys for a day at the beach. As I typed I remembered the wind in our hair as we
sailed over the Coronado bridge singing to the top of our lungs along with the Bee Gees…
Stayin Alive. I can feel the golden sun burning my shoulders as I l sit in my bikini on an old quilt
surrounded by my ocean wet giggling kids. I see my children gobbling sandy sandwiches and
cookies, all talking at once. Tears for what once was run down my cheeks. Oh, to simply have
one of those days again. That summer was my halcyon summer and I didn’t even know it.
Ok, time to stop reminiscing, reading through my writing, living again as that young and
sometimes fearless woman. I could sit here and do that for days. After all, there are seventy
summers and countless tiny scenes that patched together make as colorful a quilt as any
glorious midsummer sunset I have ever seen.
As I write memories, I relive them. I feel the sun. I feel the love, the sadness, the joy.
The heft of my newborn sons in my arms, my Grammy’s fleeting kiss on my cheek, the
chilly indifference from my mother, my crippling fear of my x-husband crawl through me again.
I smell the scents of summer, my sons’ wet hair, Coppertone, fresh mowed grass, chicken
sizzling on the grill. I bite into the first peach of the summer again, taste the salt of my lover’s
skin, sip sun tea. I hear the crash of waves at the beach, my sons’ young voices calling
“mom”, our dog barking, my Daddy’s voice, my beloved husband whispering he’ll “love me
forever” that first time. I marvel at the gift of writing those memories. Time does stand still, if not for a short
spell because when I write it, I relive it. Is that not the best gift of all? I will continue writing my
story as there are many more summers to revisit, some wretched but most splendid.
Okay, here goes. I click on submit. Good luck to me and good luck to all the writers
who submit.