Writing...or lack thereof

When I was visiting home (backwards way of putting that) this weekend, my friend Billy asked me what I’ve been doing with all my free time as of late. I flippantly replied that I watch HBO, catch up on “Gossip Girl” reruns. Sometimes I make muffins. He cocked his eyebrow a little bit, in that way that totally infuriates me ‘cause I know he’s right before he even opened his mouth and said “Why don’t you write?”

Why doesn’t Stephanie write?

I meant to all summer. I know my writing teacher from last year would probably throw a (small) fit if she found out, which she just may now. Regardless, I meant to write all summer. Meaning to doesn’t equal actually sitting down and making myself write, no matter how silly or mundane the product may be. I can think of two instances this summer in which I wrote. No, three.

1.) I followed my writing teacher’s advice and sat down every night for about a week and just wrote straight for twenty minutes. I was homeless at the time (my lease was up on my apartment, but I didn’t want to leave my job, plus I hadn’t been hired on at my current job yet so I was staying in a friend’s apartment while he was gone for the summer) and I think I was motivated by the fact that I had nothing else to do. My writing entries mostly consisted of my boy troubles, as I’m so often teased about. Those boys are a couple of fickle mistresses, if you will. But they certainly provide material. Besides, it was summertime… I equate boy writing with beach books.

2.) After a friend got married at the end of June, I started a story about her wedding. I think I listened to “I’m Not the Bride” by Trick Pony about 100 too many times this summer because that story quickly took on an anti-marriage tone awful quickly. I would like to finish it, however. I think it is interesting how half my writing takes on the men in my life and how they drive me nuts (fine, it is singular: how he drives me nuts) but how ridiculous it is that so many people I know are getting married at 19-23 years of age. For reals? With one couple as an exception…you don’t even know who you are yet. Anyway, before I piss glowing brides off, I am moving on.

3.) I wrote four letters before I moved out of my college town. Three went to friends, one went to a mentor of mine in town. I had two weeks warning that I was leaving and though I wrote and rewrote all four letters in my head several times over that two weeks, they all got actually written in the scramble between packing and trying to suck as much time as I could from everyone that last week. Regardless, I spent a lot of time, energy and heart on those letters. I wanted to make sure everyone knew how much they meant to me. That was a priority for me before I left.

So why am I not writing now? I’m not even reading. I wonder if it is because I am a non-fiction writer by nature. Writing, right now, will take on everything I just left when really, I want more than anything to just be happy and settle here. I could write about here, but I haven’t really been here long enough to reflect on what’s happened so far. That, and none of it is that interesting. Writing fiction and poetry has never appealed to me so much. I can just take a break, can’t I? My last two semesters of school drained all my creative energies – you should see those portfolios I produced though.

I guess you could chalk it all up to that fact that I’m still settling in here, in my new life. I’m still unpacking odds and ends, still arranging furniture to my liking. I don’t even have a kitchen table or a desk yet. Everything’s still in transition, like it has been for over two months now. Maybe when I feel like I have a home again, that’s all mine, then I’ll start writing. Again.

Campanile Sighting!

After five weeks in a town with its own yellow brick road, I got to go home to my little college town.

While it was a week earlier than anticipated and partly for reasons that were not enjoyable (a friend’s husband passed away), it was crazy lovely to see that town again.

There’s a landmark on campus you can see from anywhere in town and within a decent amount of distance from the city. For five years, when I saw our campanile, I always knew I got to where I was going, if you catch my drift. Slang terms for the tower run rampant through dorm hallways, but I’ve never paid much attention to those things. After five weeks, I saw the campanile, standing out against a back drop of a pale blue sky and I laughed aloud, zooming down the interstate.

I saw everyone I’ve missed so much. My first stop in town was a dear friend’s house before he left for a weekend in the cities with his older brother. Then I ran out to my old job, where I talked to almost all my old coworkers. I forgot until halfway out there that I don’t have a key anymore, so I drove around until I found a group of manufacturing employees sitting in the sunshine outside a door and sweet talked them into letting me in the building. I love how trusting/ambivalent everyone is about those locked doors. :)

Later on, I went to the wake, had dinner with my best friend and her boyfriend and watched the presidential debate with my favorite married couple. Amanda (the best friend) and I later went to the late show of “My Best Friend’s Girl” which was good, except I had a difficult time staying awake. Actually, I totally sacked out for about five minutes, but we were in the back row and Amanda nudged me awake.

The next morning, Amanda showed me our school’s new wellness center, which I’m totally jealous about, and we went to the bookstore because she found a stash of alumni merchandise I’m going to raid next weekend. Who doesn’t need a mouse pad with a big, blue jackrabbit on it?

Next was the funeral, which was difficult, but not nearly as difficult as it was/will be for the family he left behind. After the funeral, I went back to Amanda’s, ate like half the cookie pile she’d baked while I was at the funeral and then we seriously sat around all weekend. On Sunday evening a big storm rolled through, and I used that as an excuse to stay until early Monday morning. I rolled out of bed, stole the most comfortable blue hoodie I’ve ever encountered in my life and drove home. I’ve officially been awake now for five hours, but I’ll make it.

Next weekend should be more fun, in the traditional sense of “fun”. Homecoming! Woohoo!

Michael Phelps and Grey's in one magical moment

Because on days like today, it truly is about the small things.

Chicken Fried

This song, by the Zac Brown Band, I hated HATED when I first moved back to town. Can't put a price tag on peace of mind? I still beg to differ. But I heard this song on the radio a couple weeks later when I was driving somewhere and I think it just hit the right place at the right time, so I definitely have a different opinion about it now. Enjoy!

Yankee Stadium

Speaking of finding my way home…

Last night, my little brother, Spencer and our father, bid farwell to a home they never saw in person. Sounds kind of crazy, doesn’t it? Saying goodbye to a place they’ve never stepped foot in.

My dad and Spencer are also kind of crazy in the sense that people like them…they’re rather rare in this part of the country: they are Yankee fans. In South Dakota. Don’t get me wrong; there is definitely a small but very known group of Yankee fans in the midst of the Midwest, but when it comes down to it, when Dad and Spencer go see the Yankees play the Twins, they’re definitely in the minority.

Regardless, they both watched Yankee Stadium host its last game last night via ESPN. Dad sat in the recliner he’s been watching Yankee games from for my entire lifetime, often sitting up unexpectedly when Jeter came to bat or when Andy Petite threw the last first pitch. It was as if sitting up, being a little closer to the television could take him into that atmosphere, like he could be a part of the last night in Yankee Stadium.

I say it’s the home Dad and Spencer never stepped foot in because they never did. The hours logged watching games, World Series be won (and lost) on television, talking about the players, explaining the more technical stuff to me… My dad, especially, has spent his whole life experiencing the ups and downs of every Yankee team since at least the early 1960’s. Spencer is just now starting to see the Yankees circle into a downward spiral; he and I came of age during that fantastic run when the Yanks won what…four World Series in five years? I know enough baseball to get me through a game and can recognize several of the more well known players, Yankee or not, but Spencer… I’m pretty sure part of the reason he went into Broadcast Journalism is because of all the time he has spent watching sports broadcasting as a child.

The thing with Yankee Stadium is that it connected generations. Last night, during a ceremony to welcome old Yankees back to the stadium one last time, I watched players (or their children) trot out to their old positions. Babe Ruth’s daughter threw out the last pitch. And it was lovely, but none of the emotion of the evening got to me until after the game, when the camera man found a little boy, probably about seven years old, wearing a pinstripe jersey and a Yankee hat way too big for his little head. One tear ran down that kid’s cheek. And that’s when I got it, the generation thing.

Yankee Stadium hosted all the great (and seriously depressing) events that bought my dad and my brother together, when they admittedly have little else in common. And though I love baseball, the sound of bats cracking, announcers freaking out (“…going, going…GONE!), the familiar sights of Yankee Stadium are not mine to claim. They belong to the real fans, the people that call that place home even when they’ve never actually been there.

Dad was part of the last night in Yankee Stadium. Derek Jeter, from the pitcher’s mound after the game, only enhanced a gut feeling I’ve had my whole life but never thought to put into words. "Although things are going to change next year and we're going to move across the street, there are a few things with the New York Yankees never change,” Jeter said. “That's pride, tradition, and most of all, we have the greatest fans in the world. We're relying on you to take the memories from this stadium and add them to the new memories we make at the new Yankee Stadium and continue to pass them on from generation to generation. We just want to take this moment to salute you, the greatest fans in the world."

Whispered Sessions

This weekend will be my fourth weekend back in town.

Aside from the fact that my parents are my main partners in crime anymore (the” baddest” thing Pops and I have talked about is stealing political signs from people’s front yards or perhaps shooting the neighbors’ dogs with BB guns – they never, ever turn off the barking!), this town is totally what it used to be in high school. Except, now we have a Starbucks. I know, right? Exciting!

Fine, not really.

Point is, it took me a good long while to settle into a pattern in my old town, find friends I felt comfortable with. And I know just about everyone in this town, but I still spend a lot of time alone. I think I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and head out to the bowling alley on Thursday nights where a bunch of old friends congregate for bowling league. Or there is always the local coffee shop on Main street, just two blocks from my office. When I passed by last week, I noticed all the writing club kids still meet there, which made me smile. Back when I was a writing club kid and wore the necessary black clothes and wrote sad, sad crappy poetry (at least mine was crap), I was so scared of the coffee house writing club kids. It was probably just because I wasn’t comfortable in my writing ability, which after a class or two in college, I became mighty comfortable with quickly…even though the ability to write without any passive sentences still eludes me.

I lived in my old town for three years before I met the crowd of people I miss so much now. Don’t get me wrong, I had best friends: Sara and Amanda and I was completely happy with them and my heart pangs a little when I think about their lives going on without me. When I started at my college job as a marketing student, I suddenly had a whole group of strangers that hardly stayed strangers for more than a few days.

I was thinking about all of them as I was driving down Sixth Avenue on my way to work the other morning. I climbed out of my shell because of those people. Talk of a coworker’s bachelorette party is my first memory at that job. Jessica’s bachelorette party, which started so much in my life (you have no idea), is what I mark as the turning point in my life. Amy, a dear friend now, a stranger then, had started in my group the same time I did. When Jessica invited us to go to her bachelorette party, I remember looking across the cube to Amy for any cues on what to do. Do we go…if we go, it has to be a we sort of thing because we are the new kids…but partying with people we work with?...do people really do that?

Turns out they do. After a few whispered sessions of “do we/don’t we” behind paper thin cubicle walls, Amy and I decided to meet at her place and then we’d venture out together. Brave whatever that night brought us together. Amy was my first friend that had nothing to do with my hometown. She was my first friend I made on my very own. For that alone, I will always remember and miss her.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I’m not gonna lie – I haven’t seen “The Wizard of Oz” in its entirety since I was but a wee little girl, except for random clips I catch on TNT over holiday weekends or the time I YouTubed the clip where you can supposedly see a man hanging from the rafters of the studio where they shot the movie at.

Still, Dorothy and Toto hold a special place in my heart, because I grew up right next door – my hometown has its very own Land of Oz, complete with the tornado house landing on the Wicked Witch of the East. Every June, during Oz Fest, we even host a Toto look alike contest. Little girls wander down the yellow brick road in sparkly ruby red slippers. And I never had to wonder if there was any other place but home, because this always was my home.
And then it wasn’t. A couple years into college, in a town only two hours (but lacking any yellow brick roads) away, I fell in love. I fell in love with a college campus, the sound of cicadas in the trees – something we don’t have a mere two hours north. I fell in love with my friends, with dancing with no inhibitions in a bar, in my own bedroom, in an elementary school playground beside the monkey bars. I fell in love with academia, learned to appreciate not only word flow, but word interpretation. And yes, I fell in love with a boy there. I’m sure you’ll hear more about him as time goes by. Long story short, that little college town, no different to outsiders than my hometown, became my new home, in the way that home means something. It was cozy and safe.

Then I graduated and went and got myself a job. Not just any job, oh no. I got a job in my town with its yellow brick roads, with its Toto look alike contests, with cracks in the sidewalk I’d long since memorized. And this new job of mine? I represent that very place with the yellow brick roads, the little girls in their sparkly ruby red slippers. Three years ago, it was my dream job. It still is, no worries. But I’m not the same girl. That’s what this blog is about, I think. Seeing if that girl still exists, somewhere in me. See if Dorothy was right along. Seeing if there really is no place like home.