February 16, 2016 | I'm fascinated with words and the magic they create when strewn together in a lyrical way. I'm an amateur wordsmith. An Oxford comma fan. A confessed midster.
I love my mother for reading to me. Following her singsong voice with my finger, tracing the words on the pages of my favorite books, filled me with wonder. I was desperate to learn to decipher the magic markings on my own. Even then, I knew, if nothing else, I would be a reader.
Then there was the moment I first held a jumbo preschool pencil in my chubby hand and pressed the tip to paper. Wondrous words weren't only meant for the pages of my favorite books. They were meant for me. Words on paper held magic. I could join letters into words and words into sentences, recording thoughts and spinning stories, even if the magic was only for me.
My niggling determination to be a writer has always been soothed by anchoring that magic in personal writings, but when my almost-grown children questioned why I jotted down dialogue or strange dreams at the most random of times, I had to come clean about my odd preoccupation with the magic of words. When I confessed, my daughter told me, "Mom, you're a writer." Huh. I guess I am.
I'm fascinated with words and the magic they create when strewn together in a lyrical way. I'm an amateur wordsmith, a fan of the Oxford comma, and a confessed midster.
By day, I'm busy managing special projects and interviewing college students. By night, I'm a busy wife, mom, and grandma with a busy imagination. My imagination conjures characters, conversations, and story lines it compels me to record. I can only find time to appease my imagination by writing like a midster.
I write in the midst of living life. I take advantage of the easily wasted moments while brushing my teeth and blow-drying my hair. I ponder life's mysteries in the shower. I use the tiny spaces between the lines of a song lyric to imagine. I wake in the midst of dreams to jot them down. I write in the midst of morning commutes and crowded waiting rooms. I write in the midst of epiphanies and heartbreaks. I conjure dialogue in the midst of grocery stores and airplane cabins and church pews. I simply can't help it.
When these in-between moments piece together to breathe life into my imaginings, the result washes pleasure and peace through my soul.
Like everyone else who learned to read the magic on the page, who let the words fade away, who let their imagination fly through the imagery of the story, I am a reader. Like everyone else who learned to string sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into pages, and pages into something grand, I am a writer.
My daughter recognized it when I hadn't a clue. I suppose my mother did, too. I have a million good reasons for loving my mother. The time she spent reading to me as a child is in the top ten. Smart mother. Grateful daughter. Avid reader. Midster writer.
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