Sunday Scribblings

The topic for Sunday Scribblings today is Something I would Never write. It would be something that would be hard and would make me grow as writer. I believe that I encapsulated the assignment.

But the assignment confused me.

I have written self-help documents for work. I have written technical documents. I have written essays, poems, fiction. I have written non-fiction. I have written travel articles. I have written academic papers. I have even written recipes. About the only area that I have not ventured into is greeting cards:

A day without you
in my boring life
is a day without sunshine
a day without strife

So read this card
and understand
I don't want you.


So there--my first greeting card.

So what would I "never write about?"

I would never write about the first time my mother slapped my cheek. Her handprint stayed there for hours. I would never write about lying in my bed with the light on, my foot next to the light switch, knowing that if I were caught reading romance novels that it would hurt--really hurt.

I would never write about the day I wept. My father believed that our dog, an elderly mixed lab, had bitten a boy. No evidence was shown. The boy ran around the next day with no bite marks the day after the death. My eyebrows, face, and neck were red from the weeping. I learned that my father did not trust my words. I learned that lying was rewarded.

I would never write about the isolation I felt as I grew up in a family who was not interested in learning or reading. They were happy being farmers, close to the harvest. They were happy playing baseball or weeding the garden. They did not understand that I wanted to know experiences beyond our little plot of land.

All of these things come out in my writing. It cannot be hidden in the shadow realms of my soul. I am fueled by them.

Even though I have an illness that could kill me at anytime, I am happy because the sadness happened long ago in a land far far away.