10 Years

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to read this piece as a featured reader at Story Club. Thanks JP for working hard to get this story told right before the 9/11 anniversary. 

Some kids dream about being a baseball player when they grow up. Or a fireman. Me? I wanted to be White House Press Secretary.

I declared myself a Democrat at age eight. As a teenager, I dreamed of a life of briefing books and tough questions from hard-nosed reporters. Oh, and saving the world, one liberal ideal at a time.

By 29, I was getting close. I was a Press Secretary for the Senate Democratic Leadership, which is how I came to be sitting at my desk in the US Capitol the day that something went very wrong.

I had just hung up the phone with a reporter when my coworker Chris walked into the press office.

“Do you know why they suddenly went into recess?” he asked me. 

Chris, you have to understand, was in charge of tracking the business of the Senate floor for the entire Democratic caucus. It was his job to know why.

“Why are you asking me?”

I followed his eyes over to the small TV on my desk just in time to see the clerks and Parliamentarian quickly rising from their seats at the front of the well and hustling out of the Chamber. Without warning, everyone on the Senate floor had just vanished. 

“This can’t be good,” Chris said.

My body already knew what to do.  I kicked my heels off, ready to run, when the yelling started in the hall outside. 

August and Everything After

It's the tail end of August, but today it was cool enough in Chicago to wear a sweater over my short sleeves. Tonight, after much wriggling, resistance and gnashing of teeth, I did some writing and began to make a plan in my mind.

I can't help but think back to last year at this time. I started the September Blog Challenge, began a class on novel writing that helped kick my book in gear. I even outlined the entire book in one feverish session on a caffeinated Saturday. So much was coming together.

And then my Dad's death slammed into it like a car through a plate-glass window.

September Blog Challenge

"Are you afraid? Don't be afraid."  -- Joan Jett, August 2010

A few weeks ago, I was crowded into a 7-11 parking lot with hot and sticky strangers to watch Joan Jett and the Blackhearts cap off this year's Market Days.  She was tiny, muscled and dressed in a black bikini top with jeans.  Stalking over to her guitar and slinging its strap over her shoulder, she led off the show with that question, "Are you afraid?  Don't be afraid."  and then the opening notes of "Bad Reputation" got everyone into a rocking badass frenzy.

Buzzed off vodka lemonade, standing under the stars, I was cut by her admonition.  Am I afraid?  Of course I'm afraid.  Fear is the motivating force in my life.

I work because I'm afraid I won't have any money and will have to go home and live in the small town I deliberately left behind.  I put off work and personal deadlines until it's almost too late, and then in a flash of fear and guilt, I churn out the press release or the fact sheet that could have been written weeks ago.  I pay the $4 processing fee to pay the RCN bill by phone the day before they shut it off.

When I worked on the Hill, I was terrified of fucking up.  I lived in fear of one of my catastrophic failures playing out on CNN and NPR for the whole world to cackle at.  It drew up knots in my back so deep that once a massage therapist said she wanted to guess what my job was at the end of the session.  Her two guesses were Department of Homeland Security or the FBI.  I was angry and brittle and prone to teary outbursts.

I'm still afraid.  Afraid that my writing sucks, that I won't ever do anything important or interesting.  That I'll make a wrong decision that can't be undone, like invest in a relationship that flames out spectacularly.  Or have a baby only to realize that I'm a terrible mother, suffocating myself and ruining that child's life forever.

The beginning of the school year has always, for me, felt like the true New Year.  Maybe it's because I had teachers for parents or the fact that the summer-to-fall transition in the Midwest seems so dramatic.  Summer requires attendance at outdoor events, weddings, barbecues and rooftops.  Wasting it feels morally wrong.  Why sit and write when you could be running on the lakeshore or out on a camping trip?  (Even when I'm not actually doing these things -- it feels like I should be)  The mandatory recreation of summer makes it easy for me to let everything slide. 

So, in the spirit of the new year and all things turning, I'm starting the September Blog Challenge.  I will post here every day.  It may just be a couple of lines, but I will write something new today through the 30th.

Feel free to harass me to keep my word.

ETA:
JP over at Buttered Noodles is also taking part in the September Blog Challenge.  She's kicking my butt already with her September 2 post.  (just remember, I am nocturnal...most posts won't go up until it's dark out)