I think my children are going to stop asking me to take them places with their friends. I am actually surprised it has lasted this long for a variety of reasons: 1. I am not very ‘warm and fuzzy’—you know, that mom who all the kids want to be around (she takes them to their favorite ice cream places and then talks glibly with them about all the cute boys in the latest episode of whatever vacuous teen television program is the flavor of the month)…instead, I am…well…suffice it to say, that isn’t me. 2. Whenever I am selected to drive my children to the movies with their friends, the entire ride home is a discussion on the worldview portrayed in the film and whether or not the movie would pass The Bechdel Test. (Who wouldn’t want to talk about those things…and if we don’t talk about those things we are one step closer to Oceania, aren’t we?…) So, pretty much, see point number one. 3. I am now also their English teacher (at least my oldest child and her many friends are in my class now, and so, really, who wants to go to the movies with their English teacher on the weekends?) Anyway, the other day I think was the last straw. We parked in the lot of the pizza place we were heading to for dinner (hey, I said I didn’t do ice cream…pizza, on the other hand, is one of the main food groups), and I noticed a rather large pile of cigarette butts near the white line marking the right side of the space I had parked in. Now, to be clear, I don’t mean three or four butts. I mean twenty or more. And they were all in an area the size of a salad plate. I pointed it out and commented that likely they were left by someone planning a robbery or murder. Someone who was casing the area, and obviously chain smoking, prior to executing the plan. I knew I had made a mistake when I kept ambling toward the siren song of spicy pepperoni and the three teenaged girls following me stopped in their tracks.
“Jeez mom!” was all my daughter said, but the saucer-sized eyeballs of her two friends spoke volumes. “What? I write murder mysteries…what can I say,” was my flippant response, and I resigned myself to their hushed snickering and exaggerated tones as we continued walking. Now, do those girls we were with think I am crazy? Perhaps. But what I noticed in that moment was kind of encouraging. I didn’t take stock of that pile of cigarettes and think about the poor person’s lungs who was playing so cavalierly with his or her health. Nor did I think about how unsightly it was and lament the state of our cities and roadways now that they are in the hands of entitled Millennials (I could have taken both of these tacks mind you). What I did do was see a relatively meaningless image and create meaning. In my case I made a storyline and a character…or at least the start of those things…because I am a writer (and specifically a writer of mysteries). If I were a poet perhaps I would have seen something else in that discard pile. A journalist—then something else again. Truly owning what you love and saying that you are a practitioner of that thing, instead of merely an admirer, moves you from the realm of appreciation to the realm of action. So, what are you? Who are you? Are you someone that just enjoys things from afar, or do you engage and create and play with the things you love? Don’t be content with just liking something or following something (and I don’t just mean Facebook, but trust me the words here are not accident). Strive to BECOME something.
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Wendy Picard GorhamWendy lives and works in the midst of words everyday--English teacher by profession, and writer by passion! Archives
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