I'm in that place again

where I am mad at the world. 

I want to go out to the garden but the garden is covered by a weird late April snow. A few miles from where I live a police officer shot a sixteen year old Black girl and killed her. It looked like he had to do it, the mayor said, calling the girl, a woman. She was fighting with another girl. She had a knife. 

The snow on the redbud trees is so thick it weighs down the branches. The tulips in my neighbor's yard are drooping cups of snow. I used to teach sixteen year old kids. And I assure you they were kids even though many of them were taller than I was. Sometimes they used to get into fights in the school hallways.

You could hear them yelling Fight! and that was the signal for the coaches to wade in and pull everyone apart. We only had one security officer and he didn't have a gun, thank God. Before I was pregnant with my first child, I confess that I did not always see my students as other people's children, as people themselves. But sometimes a girl or boy broke through and reminded me. Linda, for example, who could barely read.

I had no idea how she made it to eleventh grade and I had no idea how to help her. I was an English teacher, but that meant teaching The Scarlet Letter, not phonics. My first year teaching I had the students keep a journal. A half a page of a response to whatever we were reading. But some kids wrote much more. In scratchy scrawl and barely past a first grade level, Linda wrote about her mom, about her fears, about herself.

I honestly don't remember what I did beyond inviting her to stay after school and going over assignments with her, but after she graduated, she kept coming back to visit. When she learned I was pregnant, she sent me a gift, a baby blanket, that both of my kids used all throughout their babyhoods. She wrote me a letter, thanking me, and the words were perfectly formed and readable and lovely. 

But there were other girls and boys I didn't see at all. I won't write this girl's name, but if there was an opposite to Linda she was it. She was in my homeroom so I only saw her for ten minutes a day and the ten minutes were always charged with tension. She was tardy. She was out of her seat. She was talking. When I called her out, she cussed me. It was a daily battle and she was fourteen years old and I was going to win, damn it. 

She was pregnant. She dropped out of school. She died during childbirth. I don't know where my humanity was because I didn't care. All I could think about was how belligerent this girl had been to me, every second that I knew her. Because we had been in a battle, I could only see her as the enemy. Think about this:

You are a girl you are a boy you are a person and you are mad bullied scared and you are fighting, defending yourself or attacking but it is justified in your mind

the police show up and within ten seconds they shoot you in the chest four times

 

The bird feeder hanging outside the kitchen window has snow on its ledge. I watch an agitated bird hop around, darting back and forth, unable to land. I am so mad at the world that I can hardly think straight and even more mad because I am this world too. I slip on my robe and head outside to swipe the snow off the bird feeder. 

I am twenty seven years too late, but I am so sorry, Aleisha. 

Back to School with a Monogrammed Towel Set

Kids are heading back to school.

The signs are everywhere. Three for a dollar notebooks. Sales on scissors and index cards and crayons. Somehow this still adds up to 80 or a hundred bucks. It's the calculators that used to push me over the edge. And the teacher requests for expensive lotion-infused tissues. I don't buy that kind of tissues for my own home.

[side note: someone told me that teachers request lotion-y tissues because said tissue is better at cleaning whiteboards than the cheapo tissue. I don't know if this is true but it made me feel less resentful about springing for the multiple boxes on the school supply list--but not less resentful that parents have to purchase this stuff in the first place. In my day, schools didn't expect parents to buy packages of loose leaf paper and scissors and glue. In my day bluh bluh bluh. Yeah. I know. I sound like a crochety old fogie.]

Anyway, what was I talking about?

Oh. Right. Back to school.

So, for the first time in sixteen years I don't have a kid going back to school.

I have a son who's been away at college and a daughter about to go. She and I are not shopping for erasers and binders and pricey Kleenex. We are shopping for shower caddys and sheets and microwaves.

Fun fact: thirty years ago I was heading off to college.

I packed up a couple of suitcases and a trunk of winter clothes that I didn't end up digging into that much. Turned out that the Connecticut girl in Tennessee discovered little use for her winter coat and hat and mittens.

Before I moved into my dorm room, my mother and I went shopping. She bought me a small rug. A bedside lamp. A framed picture that I thought was artsy and sophisticated. A phone. (Which I used as much as my winter coat. It cost money to dial anywhere outside the college.)

My 18-year-old self was terrified and excited. Anxious and eager. Shy and confident.

The first week or two I was homesick. Not for home exactly. But for something--anything--familiar. I was a Northerner (people actually referred to me as a Yankee) at a Southern school. A poor girl surrounded by mostly wealthy kids. I was a fish out of water.

But I quickly morphed into a new fish, a new self. Maybe the self I was always meant to be. Going away turned out to be the best thing I ever did and set me off on a path I'd never have discovered if I hadn't had the courage--and privilege--to go.

I met my husband at that school. Twelve years later we had a baby girl.

Next week we'll pack up the car and take this darling girl to that same college. --I promise my husband and I did not pressure her!! -- She has tons more clothes than I ever did. She's smarter. Prettier. She's got a lovely set of monogrammed towels.

She is terrified and anxious and shy.

She is excited and eager and confident.

Me, on the other hand...

Um.

Don't Step on the Seal. And other stuff I learned on the college tour circuit

I've visited a lot of college campuses over the past few years.

It was fun at first. (Side note: I was looking at these colleges with my teenaged son as part of his college search process, so once I got past the shocking/horrifying fact that I was the parent of a teenaged son going through the college search process, I kinda got into the whole thing.)

While my kid was slouching in the back of the parent info session, I was the perky helicopter mom jotting down notes about the application process and average SAT scores (that my equally helicoptery husband would later input into an Excel spreadsheet).

I loved the student led campus tours where a gushing model specimen of collegiate-ness walks backward and spouts off fun facts about college life while at the same time pointing out interesting aspects of the architecture. Look at the ivy crawling up the side of that building! Did you know that 25% of our students study abroad? See that stained glass window?-- that was once Einstein's office.

Maybe four or five visits in, some of the fun facts and interesting architectural aspects started to bleed together.

Did you know, for example, that pretty much every college campus has a nearby ice cream parlor/pizza place/bbq joint where THE BEST ICE CREAM/PIZZA/BBQ EVER is served and you simply must stop there on your way out of town?

Every college cafeteria has a pasta bar.

Every place has some kind of elaborate etched into the brick walkway college seal or special archway that you must not walk across/step through or you won't graduate.

Every place is gung ho sustainability and yoga and 25,000 intramural sports and clubs.

The tour guides lie to you. About the ice cream parlors. And Einstein's office. 

After the blurry whirlwind of touring, a couple of tidbits stand out:

Most original dorm option (can't remember which school this was. Oberlin? Swarthmore?): You can apply to live with a handful of other kids in a Thoreau-like cabin way off campus, with no running water or electricity.

Fun fact that probably should NOT have been said by a tour guide: We were passing by a beautiful pond, and someone (Me) mentioned how nice the pond was, and the tour guide said, Yeah, but we can't swim in it because it has like, 30 strains of e-coli bacteria.

By the time kid number two came along, I was jaded and cynical about the college search process but trying to be joyful and rah rah about it for the sake of my child --who was looking at totally different schools from the ones we looked at with her older brother.

The first place we visited with kid #2, my husband and I were rolling our eyes and whisper-mocking the newby parents. (Did they not get the memo about letting your kid be the one to ask if there is a study abroad program at this school?

Answer: Of course there's a study abroad program at this school. There's a study abroad program at EVERY SCHOOL.

On the tours: more lies about not stepping across supposedly magical seals. More strolls through libraries and campus bookstores and chemistry labs and chapels and state of the art gyms.

RE: the cafeterias. Pasta bars are so 2011. Now the In thing is a panini press station.

Yesterday, my husband and daughter and I were sitting in the parlor of a yet another lovely admissions office awaiting yet another official college tour. Outside it was gray and cold. When we started out the door following after the student guide, the wind picked up. Even so, the campus was gorgeous, with its old brick buildings and crisscrossing walkways, and a stunning panoramic view of rolling hills and woods and fields.

The student tour guide was appropriately hip and peppy. He walked backward like a pro, spouting off the admission stats and waving at points of interest. Two minutes into the tour, we stopped and looked down at the school seal.

"You know," said our student guide, "Students can't ever step across that or they won't graduate." He went on to say something about the number of kids who participate in Greek life or who volunteer to do community service.

I had stopped listening to him. I was looking at my daughter, her hair flicking up in the breeze, her arms crossed, either because she was freezing or anxious or both.

I looked over at my husband, who had his hands thrust in the pockets of his not weather-appropriate hoodie, and wondered if he was freezing or anxious or both. Was he thinking about our older child in college and how the second semester's horrifyingly high bill would be due soon and how the hell were we going to pay for the next kid on top of it and maybe it was time to pull out the Excel Spreadsheet where we have our college savings plan charted out for the next 5 years and doublecheck it?

A few years ago, at a college info session--(Williams?), the speaker talked about the school's 4-week Winter Term. Because I was a newby at that point, I'd never heard of such a thing, but apparently, you can do an internship or study abroad or stay on campus and ski. Or you could take a class. Or make up your own class, based on your interests. Teach yourself Morse Code or read all  of the poems by Emily Dickinson.

My mind was wandering, imagining that. How cool that my kids would get to Do those things. Eat paninis and live in Thoreau-like cabins and study in France. What would it be like to take four weeks and just read Emily Dickinson?

And then it hit me, I COULD take four weeks and read Emily Dickinson poems if I wanted to. What was stopping me? And damn it, if I want to eat paninis or pitch a tent in the back yard and pretend I'm Thoreau or throw caution to the wind and put a trip to France on the credit card, I could do that too.

Back in the gray windy day at the lovely college on the hill, the tour guide was gesturing to the library.

"This is our seventeenth college tour," my husband whispered to me.

We hung back further from the tour. The wind picked up and everyone was relieved when we got to go inside a dorm and see a sample dorm room.

"Are these dorms coed?" asked a parent.

YES!!! I wanted to tell him.

"Yes," said the tour guide.

When the tour was over, we ate lunch in the cafeteria. Salad bar. Build Your Own Omelet Station. Create our own sandwich. Paninis.

We ate pizza.

Before we left town, we stopped for ice cream at the best ice cream place ever.

At home, my husband pulled up the Excel Spreadsheet of College Costs. I got online and ordered a panini press.

Teen Guest Post: WHO AM I? by Grace Rogers

As promised here, I'm hosting a guest blog series called WHO AM I? and have invited teen writers to contribute.  

And a shout out to my artistic teen neighbor Courtney Berger for designing the awesome banner.

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Who Am I?

by Grace Rogers, guest blogger

Last Thursday, I made a disappointing discovery about my generation.

We had just received our yearbooks, and my friends and I were flipping through them, giggling at the candids and reminiscing at the good times we had that year. One friend, however, did not join in on our fun. This particular friend had received the superlative of "Most Unique," and she was livid about it. "Kristen," I said, trying to console her, "being unique is a good thing." Another friend glanced up at me from across the table, judgment written across her face. "No, no, it’s really not," she informed me, and promptly went back to her book.

I was astounded.

I know that most teenagers conform to each other, but I honestly kind of assumed it was a thing that just happened. It had never once crossed my mind that people made an actual, conscious decision to swim solely in the mainstream, that they had no desire to explore smaller, less traveled streams.

I, for one, am an avid explorer of new streams. In a place filled with Norts and t-shirts, I sport sundresses and overalls. In a class of twenty-three, I am one of two people who reads books. I’m constantly in the pursuit of witty Twitter accounts, amazing bands that have yet to take the world by storm, and friends that keep my life intriguing. A world in which everyone is the same would bore me out of my skull. No new music, no new books, and social media would be useless and uninspiring. We would be the society that YA dystopian novels warn us against.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m about as basic as they come. I quote Mean Girls daily, I know every single Taylor Swift song, I tweet about as often as I pray, and I think that Zac Efron is hotter than an afternoon in August. For the most part, I’m a common white girl, and I’m proud of it. However, there are some traits that make me different, and I’ll be damned if I don’t cling to them like Rose to that door at the end of Titanic.

And why shouldn’t I?

Why should I be discouraged from simply being myself? If God had wanted us all to be the same, He would have made us so.  The Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal, but that is so laughably far from the truth. Take me, for example. I’m not a straight-A student like some people, nor do I have a fabulous singing voice. I’m not tall like a supermodel, and I don’t have hair like a mermaid. But guess what? I love myself. I can make people laugh, I’m always ready with a pun, and strangers tell me that I’m adorable. I can read a book in a day, and I strongly believe in horoscopes. I’m not the most popular person at my school, but I’m okay with that. I love being who I am, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Millennials, I implore you to stop listening to American Top 40 and start marching to the beat of your own drum. Stop chasing after every single fad that comes along. Take some time, and figure out what it is that you like, what makes you special. When you do, be sure and tweet me, because I love making new friends.

“Today you are you, that is truer than true.

There is no one alive that is youer than you!”--Dr. Seuss

Teen Guest Post: WHO AM I? by Sidney C.

As promised here, I'm hosting a guest blog series called WHO AM I? and have invited teen writers to contribute.  

And a shout out to my artistic teen neighbor Courtney Berger for designing the awesome banner.

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Who Am I?

by Sidney C., guest blogger/artist

If your life was drawn out,
Tell me,
What would I see?
You were given a blank canvas
To create who you want to be
But others have folded you
Into a bird with no wings
Can’t you see?
You’re locked inside a cage
Why not set yourself free?
You’re crumbling, broken.
You keep quiet
Your pain remains unspoken.
These thing that you’ve started,
They’ve become a routine.
Two things:
Who you are and
Who they want you to be
And you’re stuck right in-between.
You want to change
You really do
But there is no way, it seems
What if no one likes the real you?
But then you see it
Just like it's in your dreams
Life is a map without a compass
You’re a ship without a sail
You’re a bird with clipped wings
It’s your choice to choose
You can hide behind something fake
Or let yourself shine through.
You realize you were never really alone,
And you kind of always knew,
That there was someone watching over you
Waiting for you to see
That the only person worth being is the one you were meant to be.
After reading this maybe you’ll see,
I like who I am.
I like being me.

Teen Guest Post: WHO AM I? by Isabel Randolph

As promised here, I'm hosting a guest blog series called WHO AM I? and have invited teen writers to contribute.  

And a shout out to my artistic teen neighbor Courtney Berger for designing the awesome banner.

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Who Am I?

by Isabel Randolph, guest blogger

If I wanted to be cutesy and cheesy and baseline poetic, I would say that I am a liberal artist, integrating aspects of the liberal arts education into every part of my life. However, the thought of being so cloyingly cute, and particularly the thought of being so cloyingly cute in poetry, makes me cringe a little bit, so I guess we can call that answer number one to the question ‘Who am I?’.

Let’s cover the facts; I’m a student in my second year at a small, private liberal arts university where I’m studying everything, though specifically English, economics, and various foreign languages, along with leading the fencing club, volunteering, working, and continually looking for new experiences. By May next year, I’ll be halfway done with my undergraduate experience, and I’ll be 20 years old, and the more I think about it the more terrifying that thought becomes. That’s two decades of time spent rotating the sun... I feel old! And young. And sometimes stuck in between.

Ignoring any quarter life-crises, I’m happier to be riding out the end of my teenage years than I was when thoroughly entrenched in them, a sentiment I semi-assume most people would adhere to. Like Jane mentioned in her post for this series, it’s so easy to get caught up in the social standards, especially in a setting like high school where it seems as if everyone has been together for ages, and because you spend so much time together just as you’re learning to define yourself, you also start to define each other. Like, I’m pretty sure I’ll always have a reminiscent affection for My Chemical Romance thanks to a best friend in middle school, and I know at least some of my drive to do really well academically was kick-started by a boyfriend in high school.

And sure, maybe those fun character-quirks would have happened anyway-- it’s possible. However, I’m inclined to think they’re much more attributes to relationships I’ve had, and, to be honest, I think that’s something that’ll happen no matter when or where you are. I could throw out examples now even to prove that that kind of influence doesn’t stop at high school graduation (hello, new found interest in Arabic and working knowledge of Twitter).

More than influences on each other, though, I think the pressure that creates that ‘trap’ feeling in high school comes from others’ expectations of you, and your reputation, and how ‘this is how you’ve been for the past five years, so obviously this is how you’ll still be, and always.’ It was that image that I remember feeling most caught in, and while I did change and grow some, probably along with the same ways everyone else was growing, it took graduating and effectively moving out of the bubble to truly get away from those expectations.

Yeah, it’s a cliche, and I’m trying to not veer back into cutesy, cheesy waters, but getting a new start was what I needed to really tackle the ‘who am I?’ question. One could argue that that’s a question with no answer, or no definite answer, anyway, but with the authority of a 19 year old who really doesn’t have a whole lot figured out (authority? what authority?), I’m going to say that I have a better answer now than I did before, which brings us to... now.

I so tongue-in-cheekily threw out the expression ‘liberal artist’ because, while I’m probably not going to stick it on a business card or resume anytime soon, it does convey probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned about myself: that when it comes to learning, I don’t want my liberal arts education to stop outside of the classroom. We’re taught on these ethical pillars, the idea that a well-rounded, well-informed student becomes an autonomous thinker and problem solver, and overall has a better understanding of the world, and that ties right into my goals because, the million dollar question, who am I?

I’m ambitious, and overachieving, and I’ve always had a little bit of an issue with teetering on that line between maximizing output and taking on just a little bit too much. I don’t know if it comes from a fast-paced society propelled by technology and instant gratification or my impending entry into a third decade on this planet (and I thought two decades sounded crazy...), an ambitious friend from high school or just the lingering aftereffects of so many jokes about the world’s apocalyptic doom the year I graduated, but I do have this sense that I have a lot of ground to cover, the sooner the better. Multitasking, getting experience in different areas, attempting to cultivate different interests; it all feels like stock ingredients that are slowly adding more facets and experiences and stories to my life.

Who am I? I’m over-caffeinated, slightly neurotic, and really, really stressed. I’m also excited, and impatient, and working on adding confident to the list.

That being said, last weekend was the first time in almost five months that I got to go home for more than 24 hours, and did I have internship work I should have been doing? Miles I should have been running? Blog posts and scholarship applications I should have been writing? Sure, yes, definitely. Did I blow off the vast majority of those responsibilities to see my best friends, shuttle my brothers around town, and go out with my parents? Yes, yes, yes. Did my entire potential future collapse before my eyes in a metaphoric pile of ‘coulda shoulda woulda?’ Negative. Finding that balance in priorities is the next big thing I have to tackle.

I’m grateful, to be lucky enough to get to go to a fancy school with a solid scholarship, to have parents and family and friends who love me and support me, even to have the abilities to run and go out and occasionally eat way too many cookies without serious repercussions. I do feel the pressure of those opportunities, though, and that’s just part of the equation, I guess. I’m lucky and crazy and hopeful and intelligent and hoping that didn’t sound self-centered and stressed out and overwhelmed, but mostly I’m young, and it’ll be okay, and I’ve got time.

Teen Guest Post: WHO AM I? by Olivia B.

As promised here, I'm hosting a guest blog series called WHO AM I? and have invited teen writers to contribute.  

And a shout out to my artistic teen neighbor Courtney Berger for designing the awesome banner.

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Who Am I?

A Poem by Olivia B., guest blogger


The new school year starts to begin,
As the teenage identity crisis sinks in,
Am I the same as I was before?
Exciting or fun, or just a bore?

What college should I be going to?
As relatives ask “what do you want to do?”
Does what you do define who you are?
Boy, your sisters really set a high bar.

Maybe I should stop talking about crew,
BUT AFTER CREW WHAT WILL I DO?
Do I want to row in college first division,
Or does my height already confirm that decision?

Is watching Gossip Girl on repeat a waste of time?
Should I be saving the world? Am I at my prime?
Does appearance matter when I’m just running to the store?
Will they think I’m not who I was before?

I know who I was, and what I want to be,
But what about the current me?
The past and future create an identity dent,
As you can never quite tell who you are in the present.

First impressions never seem to satisfy,
Whereas second impressions are a biased lie,
And even the closest don’t know everything, do they?
Is it supposed to be that way?

You read books telling you you can be whoever you wish,
All of the falsified information 1st grade teachers dish,
You are who you are, not who you choose,
You can hide, but the real you will win and the fake you will lose.

So why do people still pretend it’s okay,
To lock the real them far away,
Who am I? Is dropped day to day,
But what is that really meaning to say?

I don’t know, and I don’t think I will for a while,

But until then all I can do is just smile.

--Olivia B. is a 17 year old writer living in Ohio

Teen Guest Post: WHO AM I? by Beth B.

As promised here, I'm hosting a guest blog series called WHO AM I? and have invited teen writers to contribute.  

And a shout out to my artistic teen neighbor Courtney Berger for designing the awesome banner.

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Who I Am

A Story by Beth B., guest blogger

“If you got to start over, what would you want to be?” Jake asked me, leaning his head back against the cell wall.

“We don’t get to start over.” I said. I had no interest in the conversation. “We chose what we wanted to be and now we’re paying for it.”

He frowned up at the grimy ceiling as we both listened to the steady dripping sound that echoed down the hall, a leak probably. It didn’t matter either way. The warden wouldn’t fix it. Why use the money on a building made for thieves, rapists, and murderers?

“Yeah I know.” His voice grew quiet. “But what if you could? What if we got a second chance?”

I stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t like those words.”

“What words?”

“What if.” There was a brown mold at the far right corner of the ceiling; it had over the past weeks made a slow, but deliberate march across the grimy surface. “What if, what if. I don’t see the point of wasting time thinking about it when there is no way it’ll ever happen.”

“Okay, but what else are we going to do?”

I rolled over on my cot facing the wall now. It was very much like me: dirty, unclean, and screaming for someone to come save it from this fate. I’m just like this wall, but we both have one thing that is different, and that is the wall knows it’s a wall, but I don’t know what I am.

Who am I?

“Andrew?” I felt Jake kick my cot with his worn boot. “Andrew? Fine. Ignore me.”

I heard him lie down, grumbling about unfriendly oafs. I raised my hand so it was inches from the wall's surface. “If who I am is what I have, and what I have is lost, who am I?” I whispered to the wall, willing it to answer me by pressing my hand against it and pushing hard.

“What are you mumbling about?” Jake asked, his cot creaking as he shifted. “Cause the food cart's not coming back until dinner, and that’s hours away.”

“Nothing.” I said, pulling my hand back, and closing my eyes, losing myself to darkness.

******

It’s been ten years since I had that conversation. Ten years to ponder who I am, and what it would be like if I got a second chance. What did I discover?

Nothing, well almost.

You would think ten years would be enough time to discover myself. That’s not easy, but I did think about it a lot. I even asked a few less violent jail mates. One said the same thing that I did: I was wasting my time thinking over something that would be worthless if I didn’t get out.

Another one said that who I am is up to me to decide. The last guy added to it by saying that who I was changed throughout my life, and there is no true answer for it.

The last one haunted me every night, and now that I’m out I realize what he means.

Who I am is never just one thing. You can try to limit yourself to one job, hobby, or sport, but the truth is that who you are is larger than you can dream, and confining that self is like shutting every emotion you have inside a small box.

So this time I’m not going to do that. I’m going to go out there and tell everyone who will listen that there is never only just one thing for you. That who you are is up to you, and you can be anything you want to be.

How do I know this is true? Well, if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here sitting at this old coffee-stained desk staring out at a sea of young faces. If I was the man still in jail, the faces would all look alike, but I’m not, and I can see that they all are harboring something special, and as their teacher I want them to share it.

I stand up, placing my mug of coffee down and picking up a black marker. I turn to them. “For today’s lesson I would like everyone to share what they wish to do when they are older. And if you don’t know, then tell me a hobby. Tell me what you dream to be.”

--Beth B. is a 13 year old writer living in Ohio. 

WHO AM I? Guest blog from a teen reader-- On NOT Letting Others Define Us

As promised here, I'm hosting a guest blog series called WHO AM I? and have invited teen writers to contribute. Up first, 16 year old Jane from Ohio. 

And a shout out to my artistic teen neighbor Courtney Berger for designing the awesome banner.

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Who I Am

By Jane Eskildsen, guest blogger

What defines a person?

I think a better question is who defines a person? So often we find ourselves caught in society letting others judge us for the things we do or don’t do. We let others define who we are, and we listen. As a high school student, I see this happen everyday. People wear the same clothes, do their hair the same way, and use the same slang. We let the bandwagon define us. And why? So that we can have that popular girl or boy like us? How crappy is that?

I feel like I’m allowing this invisible force to squash me into characteristics that I simply am not. I’m letting people who know absolutely zero about me judge and define my life. People set us up for a future that we don’t want to travel to. A future that doesn’t fit who I am. 

Who came up with this system? Who said that if you don’t live life a certain way, you are doing it wrong? There is no right or wrong answer to life or who you are or what you are living for. I think that’s where people like me get lost. 

I’ve taken the liberty of changing my post’s purpose from ‘Who am I?’ To ‘Who I am.’ 

For me there is no question. It is only a statement. There is no right or wrong. There is only me. I’m done molding myself for people who don’t give a damn. I am me and that is who I am.

For 16 years I have been the same person. I’ve learned and grown, and in 16 more years, I’ll still be me. I have no idea what the future truly holds for me. But those decisions are for me to make and me only. That’s who I will be. 

I’m confident, independent, outgoing, funny, tall, awkward, and loving. I have great family who love me and fantastic friends who care about me. My life is my own and could be short or long. But who really cares? I’ve got a life and I am living it.

That’s who I am. Who are you?

WHO AM I? You Are Who You Say You Are and Other Possibly True Thoughts about Identity

When I was ten, one of my favorite books was Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer. On the surface it's a time travel book, but there are some insights in it that struck me, even as a ten year old, as kinda cool. Now that I think about it, the book may have set me off on a lifetime quest.

Here's the gist of the story: a girl, Charlotte, is sent to a boarding school in the English countryside. The first day is overwhelming and confusing. She's in a strange place. She's meeting a bunch of new people. The girls all sleep in a big dormitory. Everyone has been going to this school for a while. They're friends, joking and fooling around, while Charlotte sits shyly on her bed and watches.

The next morning she wakes up and there's that feeling of strangeness again. She's in an unfamiliar place. She doesn't know anyone. She's homesick. So she doesn't realize at first that things are different. It is the same dormitory with the same beds. The same school. But the class schedule is different. The girls are different. One of them calls her Emily.

It slowly becomes apparent to Charlotte that she has slipped back in time and switched places with a girl named Emily. It's the bed, it turns out, that the two girls sleep in that makes the switch possible. The story unfolds with Charlotte and Emily switching places every other day, experiencing the lives of the other.

I think my ten-year-old self was attracted to the time travel aspect of this story, but also to the idea that it might be possible to escape your life--escape yourself. And there's a creepy notion at the heart of this book: Why are the girls able to pull off this switch? They don't even look very much alike.

One morning Charlotte simply wakes up in Emily's bed, people call her Emily, and she doesn't correct them.

I heard this idea once, that some authors explore the same subjects over and over. Jane Austen writes about marriage. Faulkner explores his little town in Mississippi. Fitzgerald keeps trying to figure out how the rich are different from you and me.

My go-to subject, I think, is identity. Somehow, even when I'm not aware of it, in my stories and books, I circle back to this theme. Who am I? my characters ask. How do people perceive me? Do people really know me? Can I change? 

No big shocker, my soon to be published first novel Thin Space plays around with this subject too.

Bear with me while I digress for a moment. When I was teaching high school English many years ago, I had a set of twins in my homeroom. Ned and Ed (not their real names) were identical, although there were slight differences in the shapes of their faces if you looked closely, if you took the time to get to know who was who.

I am ashamed to say that I did not take the time. I had Ned and Ed in my classroom for roughly fifteen minutes a day for an entire year, but I never learned which boy was which. These kids were on the annoying end of the behavior spectrum. When I reprimanded one of them, which I did, a lot, I always had to take a guess at the name.

Example:
Me: Ned, sit down.
Ned/Ed (glaring): I'm Ed.
Me: Whatever. Sit down, Ed.

It hit me one day how upsetting that must've been for those boys--to have people mixing them up, not taking the time to figure out who was who. And not caring enough to bother.

What would that be like--to be a twin? To have people--maybe even your closest friends and family--squinting, pausing, wondering--if you were you. 

Or if you were the other one.

You can read Thin Space on Sept. 10--exactly two months from today!--to find out how I answered that question.

In the mean time, since I am still clearly enamored with the topic of identity, I'm starting a teen guest blog series called WHO AM I?

I'll be posting the responses soon...

The Big Break-up that Changed the Course of My Life

Over on YA Outside the Lines, we're blogging about Moments of Growth--in our characters and in ourselves. Here's a pivotal moment in my own life, that might serve as a cautionary/inspirational tale for a teen...

  

Confession: I once dated the same boy for nine years. 

The romance started innocently enough when the boy asked me to a middle school dance. We were both eleven years old. He passed me a note in class: Will you go to the dance with me? Circle yes or no. I circled yes.

Our relationship ended over the phone when we were twenty. In between was lots of soap opera-y drama--teary break-ups followed by desperate attempts at reunions. Everyone, including our parents, thought we belonged together and would eventually get married.

There were a variety of contributing factors that led to my falling into and sticking with a long-term teen relationship. Here are a few: 

• I didn't have the most stable home-life, and this relationship--rocky and ridiculous as it was for most of the time--was one sure thing I could count on
• My father died when I was young. This may be the biggest factor. And now that I see my own daughter and the very cool relationship she has with her Dad, I know how essential a father is when it comes to a girl's developing sense of self. Her identity as a woman, whether she believes she needs a guy to complete herself and fill some emptiness, or not--all seem inextricably tied to how the first man in her life, her father, treats her.
• The weirdest aspect of my relationship with this boy was how fated it felt. The longer we dated, the more it seemed we were meant to be together. Every time we broke up, it was always the thing we would say when we got back together. "We've been with each other so long, how we can quit now? We're worth working on," we said. As if we were a married couple and not two sixteen-year-olds.

Every so often reality would creep in on me or else bash me upside the head. What we had in common when we were eleven (not much, really, except we both thought the other one was cute) and what we had in common at age twenty changed drastically. Example: I majored in English in college. He failed high school English. I could give you a billion more examples, and it is clear now how wrong we were for each other, but back then, it was like I was slogging around in a muddy fog. I could not see myself and this boy for what we were.

Some part of me must have though, and I marvel at that part. It made me apply to a college 1250 miles away. Oh, it would've been so easy and expected to go to the school in my state. An added bonus: my guy told me he'd be hanging out with me there all the time! Never mind that the place was cheaper, which would make things simpler for my single working mom too.

But I went away. Even though I was scared out of my mind. I think I held onto the guy at this point out of sheer terror. It was nice to have a boy back home waiting for me if this whole going off to college thing fell through.

Going far away to college (and I HIGHLY recommend this, kids!) was like waking up from that muddy foggy dream. There is great freedom in starting over in a place where not one other soul knows you. Hey, you can be anyone you want. You can be alone for the first time ever and realize you won't fall apart.

You can pick up the phone one day and break up with your boyfriend of nine years.

The week leading up to when I did the deed, I was a manic wreck. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I wasn't just breaking up with a boy, I was tearing apart the expected pathway of my life.

The funny thing was I think he was almost relieved when I told him. I am not saying that I didn't break his heart. (Or that he hadn't broken mine, either, multiple times) Just that we were both weary of it, of each other, and someone, finally, was going to have to put the relationship out of its misery. I am not sure, exactly, how that someone was me, how I mustered the courage to say what needed to be said and stand firm. But somehow, I did it.

And after, for weeks, I walked around in an excited daze, grinning like a loon.

If I could do this thing--change the entire trajectory I had been on since the age of eleven, geez, what else could I do?

I really could be anything I wanted to be. I could live anywhere I liked. I could follow any dream. There was no prescribed path for my life, after all, and every option in the world was suddenly open to me.

(One half of the once happy couple) 

Haunted at Seventeen

Nova Ren Suma’s new novel, 17 & Gone, came out last week on March 21, and to mark the release of this story about a 17-year-old girl haunted by the missing, she’s asked some authors she knows to join her in answering this question: What haunted you at seventeen? (click here to see the series.) Full disclosure--Nova Ren Suma does not know me and therefore did not ask me to write a post, but I was so inspired by this writing series that I could not resist posting my own.

So...

What haunted me at 17?

When I was seventeen I punched a girl in the face.

Even now, many many years later, I can see her expression, her wide eyes, her mouth falling open, and her hands flying up in surprise. "You hit me," she said. "I can't believe you did that."

I couldn't believe it either. We were stuck in a traffic jam, a pushing surge of bodies that had just been let out of a school assembly. Our little encounter had probably been witnessed by twenty people. Some of them called out "Whoa!" They laughed with glee or maybe it was discomfort. It's not every day that you see a girl lash out in what can only be called rage.

I managed to elbow through the crowd, my hand still stinging, my heart pounding, tears streaming down my face. I could hear the girl screeching behind me. "She hit me. Can you believe she hit me?"

It was the last month of my senior year, a year that was a majorly crappy year in a long string of majorly crappy years.

But still, I had never punched anyone in the face before.

This was me at seventeen, a bizarre blend of opposites:

• quiet, almost pathologically shy, when I wasn't manic and gushing and gossiping and flirting
• studious and conscientious and hardworking when I wasn't falling asleep in class
• a nerdy preppy Catholic school girl in my polyester uniform (green skirt, pastel color collared blouse) when I wasn't waiting tables in a different polyester uniform (brown jumper, orangey striped jersey) 
• A daydreamer who read constantly and wrote stories and locked myself in my room when I wasn't sneaking out of my house in the middle of the night to roam around with friends
• College bound and driven and ambitious when I wasn't obsessing over a boy who dropped out of high school
• A dutiful rule-follower when I wasn't writing essays for other students if they would buy my lunch 

Why did I hit the girl?

The easiest explanation is to say it had to do with a boy, but it was more than that. A she said/she said kind of thing that spiraled out of control. A former best friend who was a Queen Bee. A group of desperate insecure girls competing for her attention. It happened at the beginning of my senior year. My group of friends took sides. And I ended up on one side, alone. It turned into a cliched bullying thing. Thank God there was no social media back then. I can't imagine how unbearable it would've been to have the gossip and mockery and threats coming at me on Facebook, et al. It was hard enough to bear it in real time when I was walking down the school hallway.

But I slogged through it. What else can you do? I counted down the days to the end of the year when I could run away from all of them. It helped that they were in none of my classes. I could orchestrate my schedule to rarely bump into those girls.

Until the day we had an assembly.

They sat behind me in a row. They kicked my chair. They whispered and laughed and joked. When we spilled out of the auditorium they bunched up right behind me. One of the girls poked me in the back. I was crying and she was mimicking me. I wasn't thinking anything at all when I spun around with my fist clenched.

I could've gotten suspended for fighting. Nobody turned me in. (Again: thank you social media for not existing!) The bullying didn't stop, but there were only a few weeks left of school. I was halfway out the door and stepping into the next stage of my life.

I went to a college 1250 miles away.

It doesn't torment me anymore. Really. It happened so long ago. I don't blame the girls. They struggled with their own demons. They grappled with their own inconsistencies in their personalities. They were doing what many of us girls were doing at age seventeen, just trying to slog through it and praying the tide wouldn't turn on them.

It is still hard to make sense of it though. How cruel we can be to each other. How stupid.

But I'm glad it happened. I'm a writer who writes stories for teenagers and this kind of thing is fuel for me, even though I've never written this particular story before. It brings me back to a place of frustration and anger and humiliation. But it also reminds me what I'm made of. What my limits are. That I can defend myself if I have to. And when I can't, I can run away--not from something, but to something infinitely better and of my own making.

(Not one of my good days. Age 17)

Changing the Course of Your Life. (A Review of Gayle Forman's Just One Day)

Sometimes a book just clicks with you. The voice of the writer draws you in. You get the characters. You laugh and cry and cringe along with them. The entire world view of the author aligns with yours. I LOVE books like this. The bummer is that it's a rare experience to find one. The writer part of me usually doesn't let it happen. I analyze the experience as I'm going through it. Why'd she start with a prologue? What made the main character say that when the author just told us he was a different kind of person? It's annoying, to put it mildly. Still, as a reader I'm always hoping for that love whenever I flip back the first page of a new book.

So it just happened and now I want to shout out my joy. The book is Gayle Forman's Just One Day (pub date: Jan., 2013). I love Gayle Forman. Her two previous books If I Stay and Where She Went are among my favorites. She's edited by the amazing Julie Strauss-Gable at Dutton. Side note: Julie Strauss-Gable is my dream editor. If you're looking for good, absorbing books for your teens (or for you) start with any book on her list. (And what a list it is. John Green. Ally Condie. Stephanie Perkins. Nova Ren Suma. These people are the stars of YA literature.) 

Let me start with a brief summary. I don't want to give too much away and one criticism I have of the book is that the blurb on the back reveals a little too much. On the surface it's a love story. Obedient, sweet, good girl Allyson is on one of those see every country in Europe in a few weeks kind of trip and she's not having a good time. Her best friend from forever is bugging her. The endless touristy sites are boring. She's off to college in the fall and she just wants to get on with it. Then--she meets Willem, a handsome Dutch actor whose tooling around in England with a rogue Shakespeare company. The two spend an amazing day together that basically changes the course of Allyson's life. I'm not saying anything more about the plot.

Here's the thing about plot: there's only so many plots when you come down to it. Girl meets boy/girl loses boy is one. Then you have your character takes a journey story line. And your character experiences a death plot. I was talking about this the other day with a friend--telling her about a great book I read (shout out to Jennifer Castle here) The Beginning of After about a girl who loses her family in a car accident. I said to my friend: it's sort of a cliche' how many car accidents there are in teen books. Then I laughed. Because MY YA book starts off with a car accident.

So what is it about car accidents? Well, I think it's just a dramatic way to get your story going, push your character into a dark place she's got to figure out how to crawl out of. What's really going on in these books is the character is discovering who he or she really is. It's the classic Coming of Age theme. Death tends to make you think about that kind of thing. Also, Love.

Back to Just One Day. Willem is the catalyst for Allyson's journey--meeting him forces her to question the sleepy obedient good girl way she's been living her life and wonder if there's another path. There's lots of traveling in this book, both actual traveling (that will make YOU want to travel, I promise) and metaphorical traveling--a true mental and emotional journey for this girl, who could be every girl on the cusp of becoming a woman--a person.

Which means learning what you want to do with your own life, what you love and what you hate (is this best friend truly your best friend? Do you really want to study Chemistry? How do you want to cut your freaking hair?) and discovering that you might have more control over these decisions than you realized. Because we are talking teens here, there's an interesting and kind of heartbreaking subplot about throwing off parental expectations too. I've written about this before--how often in YA books you have either non-existent parents or neglectful/abusive ones. It's disturbing. But the vehicle is a symbolic way to highlight this necessary growth process. If you ever want to be the hero in your own life, inevitably, you've got to shuck off the parents and strike out on your own. I love how Gayle Forman handles Allyson's helicoptery parents. They are the antagonists (particularly the mom) but they are not villains. They're complex, flawed, well-meaning people. (Or maybe this was just  MY reading, because I've got helicoptery mom tendencies in me!)

All of the characters in this book are complex and real. The best friend who keeps changing her hair style and clothes so that Allyson hardly knows what the girl will look like each time she sees her. The new best friend, a cool African American guy who's brilliant and funny and wise to the ways people wear different masks depending on who they're dealing with. And of course, the GUY. Mysterious and beautiful Willem--the boy every girl yearns for--the one who gets our jokes and says we're pretty and who when he touches us makes us feel an electric current running straight to our hearts.

Who cares about the boy though? 

Here's the great thing about this book. It's Allyson's story. It's potentially every girl's story. Could something that happens on just one day change the entire course of a person's life?

Why not?

Buy this book for your daughters, people. And then you read it too. 

Guest Blog from a Teen Reader (Jane, age 15): The Person who Changed my Life (and is still changing it)

For a few months now my mom has been begging me to write a guest blog for her (she was literally on her knees at one point. Mom gets really intense with this sort of stuff). I wanted her to stop feeling so betrayed and neglected, so I went ahead and wrote one. Except that I didn’t.

I would write an introductory sentence and then quit because it sounded like I was too scholarly, too athletic, or too great of a teenager. As my mom’s only daughter, I felt as though I had to produce a magnificent blog that would forever rule the blogosphere. A blog that would hit number 1 on the charts. Maybe I’m reaching for the stars here, but I’m kinda hoping to get a few more followers on Twitter also (I’m trying to break 100).

So I’m sure you are all curious as to what my awesome blog will feature. What literary works are included, who the person is who changed my life, does my mom still feel betrayed and neglected, etc. Well, keep reading, because within the next few paragraphs your questions will all be answered. You should be aware though, after reading this blog, you might shed some tears, be nostalgic of your teenage years, wish you had a friend like I do, and have an insane urge to follow me on Twitter.

So I have this friend. Her name is Ella. She currently lives a few houses away from me and she refuses to stop changing my life. I mean really, she refuses to stop.

Ella has been there through thick and thin. She has been there through panic attacks, bloody noses, tears, and even pee. Yes urine. I have peed my pants more times around her because of laughter than I have peed in a regular toilet. We are so close, that people tend to see us as a married couple--we have our own sides on the bed and we bicker a lot.

We are so close, that the one and only LAUREN OLIVER, author of my favorite book, Delirium, knows us as the Dream Team. At the book signing where we met her, she even told us to make a picture book about our friendship. This picture book will feature a Giraffe named Jane and a Bear named Ella. It will mostly be a collection of mediocre drawings and hilarious animal puns. The title: The Tails of Jane and Ella (That’s the literary work section of this blog. Sorry to let you down). Ella and I are so close that I am often found wearing a pair of her underwear because of a mishap with my bladder. The two of us are so damn close that my very own mother has called me Ella.

Ella has taught me to stand for something. She is as independent as they come, she knows what makes her upset and what doesn’t. She seems to really get it, the whole stand for what you believe in thing. She has helped me carve out what I believe in and what I don’t. She has urged me to go further with my beliefs and everything that I stand for. So the following paragraph is for you, Ella. So that you know that you have made an impact on me deeper than anyone ever.

Ella, 

I’ve finally found what I believe in. And it sucks that it has taken this much tension and tears for me to understand and find it. But here it goes: I believe in us. I believe that our friendship should last a lifetime. I believe that even though we are both different and similar in every way, that we will continue to stay friends. I believe that we will always love each other in that sisterly yet oddly marital way. I believe that we will always be set apart from the crowd as best friends forever. Because, E, I don’t need a religion or a God or a heaven, I don’t need a prayer to say before bed or a church to eat donuts in every Sunday for me to find my beliefs. I have you. 

I stand for us. 

So there. I said it. Feeling nostalgic yet? Feel those tears creepin’ up? Do you feel that urge to follow me on Twitter because I have sparked feelings that you didn’t even know you had? I haven’t answered one question yet- No, my mom does not feel betrayed or neglected anymore--I made the blog, didn’t I?

THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO ELLA FOR EVERYTHING SHE HAS PUT ME THROUGH.

May the Dream Team last forever.

-Jane

Who the Heck Am I? A Look at Two Creepy YA Novels

Just the other day I was feeling nostalgic about my teen years, reminiscing about how fun that time was with my whole life stretched in front of me and no real stress or problems except worrying about an upcoming test or figuring out what to wear to a party. Which probably made my teen readers snort and roll their eyes. Actually, the teen me of (cough cough) 20--who am I kidding?--30 years ago would’ve snorted and rolled her eyes too. That version of me is sometimes hard to tap into, but seeing as how it’s my job to write for teens, I tend to put myself back into that fun time of life probably more often than the average adult. And here’s what hit me, especially after reading a couple of chilling YA novels, which provided an additional reminder: being a teen is not always that fun.

It’s no surprise that young adult literature is often called dark. High school’s full of good old-fashioned conflict: peer pressure, bullies, controlling nagging adults who don’t freaking understand you, and the boy who rips your heart out and spits on it. Never mind the surging hormones and inopportune acne breakouts. AND all of this is whirring around while you’re grappling with the biggest issue of all—trying to figure out who you are.

This is the subplot, if not THE plot of many YA novels and the two I recently read that nudged me to remember some of the not so fun aspects of my own high school years (interesting digression/confession: I once punched a girl in the mouth. Me! An obedient book-wormy Catholic school girl who’d never gotten a detention or even a tardy slip. But senior year this girl had been tormenting me for months, and one day I snapped and popped her in the face.) I don’t know how the authors would characterize their books, but I’m gonna shelve them in Horror.

Glimmer by Phoebe Kitanidis has a grabby (and be warned: r-rated) hook: teen boy and girl wake up in bed, um, naked, not remembering how they got there. Wary and freaked out, they resolve to hang together for a few days, at least until they can unravel the mystery behind their mutual amnesia. They stumble into this bizarre town called Summer Falls that reminded me of Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Do you remember that scene on the planet where It lives, with all the kids bouncing balls in the driveways and all the fathers marching off to work at the same time? Well, the town in Glimmer is that place amped up. With a twist. Summer Falls is just a little too perfect and the main characters aren’t the only ones having trouble remembering stuff. Which might be a good thing. Or not. There’s a horror plot at the center involving vengeful ghosts, but what packs the real punch is the idea of forgetfulness itself. Because what’s more chilling than not knowing who you are?

Well, here’s something: questioning your own sanity.

Shift, the debut novel by Australian writer Em Bailey, twists the search for identity around in a thought-provoking way. Main character Olive’s got the usual teen problems—school’s a drag, mom’s a suffering single parent, and there’s a group of mean girls led by former best friend, Katie doing their best to make Olive feel like crud. Add to that she’s grappling with some kind of breakdown and must take meds to keep her life from spinning out of control again. Enter new girl Miranda, who just seems off to Olive and her only friend Ami. The two girls watch as Miranda latches onto Katie and takes that saying, "imitation is the highest form of flattery" to its extreme. The real trouble is: is Olive’s perception of Miranda accurate or is she on the verge of losing her mind?

Yikes, I was biting my nails reading both of these books and more than a little relieved to have my own angsty teen conflicts far behind me.

In case anyone’s wondering, I never punched anyone again… that I remember.

Cue: creepy music.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight Or How I Fell in Love at a Wrestlemania Party

Ah. Sigh. Swoon.

I just read a lovely young adult novel about young adult love and I am still sighing and swooning and sorta wishing I were a young adult again and on the verge of falling in love. Every once in a while—when you’re slogging your way through adult life, preoccupied by adult details like paying bills and planning meals (rice tonight with the chicken, honey? Or should we do potatoes?) and staying on top of what your own young adults are up to (please for the love of God, dear son, finish the online class you signed up for and promised to complete last summer because it’s an Ohio graduation requirement and you won’t get your diploma unless you freaking do it) and debating with yourself about whether or not the bathroom cleaning can be put off for yet another day—you read a lovely young adult novel that vaults you back into the past. It is a past when your biggest worry was what to wear to tonight’s party. Or whether you should go to the library to read that 19^th century British lit novel or take it outside on the lush lawn in front of your dorm while frat boys fling Frisbees over your head.

Since I was the girl who usually chose the lush lawn and the Frisbee flinging frat boys, I totally get the fun angsty love plot lines that weave through many young adult novels. Aside: I read somewhere that all of YA literature written for girls can be summed up as following: My life sucks. I meet a boy.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith does follow that premise, I suppose, but oh, it does it so well. Boiled down to its essence it is simply: girl meets boy on a plane. In this case seventeen-year-old Hadley is heading to London to be a bridesmaid in her father’s wedding. Since she’s still ticked off about her parents’ divorce and hasn’t even met the bride, soon-to-be-stepmother yet, she’s not itching to go and is almost relieved when she misses her flight and has to catch the next one. It doesn’t help that she’s got claustrophobia and dreads the thought of being stuck on an airplane for seven hours. Enter: Oliver, a cute Yalie heading home to England for a dreaded visit of his own. The two strike up a conversation and over the next few hours find themselves happily distracted by each other’s company. There’s clever banter and adorable flirting but there’s also more serious stuff dealing with flawed families, fears, grief, and ultimately forgiveness.

Loved loved this book. Loved Hadley and Oliver. And loved seeing how fate brings them together again and again. It’s something you kinda forget about when you’ve been an adult for a while and consumed with bills and side dishes and toilet cleaning, but once upon a time, you did believe in love at first sight. You did. Because it happened to you.

Here's how: you and a free spirited sorority sister embraced the Wrestlemania theme of a frat party and dressed up as lady wrestlers even though you felt like total fools walking around half dressed in something you wouldn’t be caught dead in normally. So this guy dressed as a wrestler asked you to dance and you did and he was kinda nice, but whatever, and then he excused himself for a minute and gave you his beer to hold and while you were waiting, another guy, who was also dressed as a wrestler, asked you to dance and when you told him you were with someone, he flirted adorably with you and ended up drinking the first guy’s beer and towing you out to the dance floor where you danced with each other the rest of the night, wrestler capes flying. So that guy, guy number two, who truth be told, looked pretty darn cute wearing a cape, ended up being your husband. (Guy number one took the loss of his dance partner in stride and seemed more ticked off about losing his beer. He ended up being the best man at your wedding.)

Ah. Sigh. Swoon.

I must share this blog with guy number two, my husband of almost 22 years. But first, I’ve got to make a decision regarding the side dish for the chicken.

After careful thought I have decided to go with couscous.

(sadly, no photo of hubby and me exists, but here's a pic.

of the two wrestler girls at the beginning of the fateful night.

I'm the one on the right.

Sorry, JB. Please don't kill me!)

Thank Goodness for Bad Childhoods

I can’t remember where I read this or how it was worded exactly, but the sentiment struck me and has stayed with me ever since: If there were no bad childhoods, there would be no such thing as children’s literature. A writer, especially one that’s got a few relentless demons in the old childhood closet—in the form of vicious bullies, abusive and/or neglectful parents, or simply a nice stretch of angsty lonesome gawky puberty-infused years—can create some rich and interesting fiction.

I’ve read YA books where you can practically feel a raw wound throbbing beneath the surface. Take a modern classic like Sara Zarr’s novel Story of Girl, which centers on a girl who may or may not have earned her bad reputation. Apparently a year earlier she had dated an older boy and he “kissed and told.” Now there doesn’t seem to be anything she can do to change everyone's negative perception. More disturbing is the girl’s relationship with her father, who appears to be judging her too. I’m not saying that Zarr herself experienced this exact situation, but the pain the character endures—her shame and confusion and guilt—that’s the Truth with a capital T.

Why do I get the feeling that Laurie Halse Anderson (Prom) understands what it’s like to grow up in a struggling blue-collar family? Or that John Green (Looking for Alaska; Papertowns) once had his heart broken by a bewitching and beautiful girl? Or that the author of the debut novel The Girls of No Return, Erin Saldin, really knows the internal turmoil of a troubled teen?

I just read this book and it was absorbing and horrifying. The main character, Lida, is bitter when her father and stepmother send her away to a reform school/wilderness camp. There, she befriends Boone, who seems like the obvious antagonist in the story, a bully who takes it upon herself to “welcome” the new campers, and Gia, a magnetic girl, who at first glance doesn’t seem to belong in a school for troubled kids. Read along, though, and you’ll be anxiously rooting for Lida to figure out who the real enemy is here.

This book is a step up from a page-turner, a female riff on the themes of A Separate Peace. Sometimes it crosses the line into over-moralizing, but I can forgive that because the book has a palpable heart at its core, and that core is something I bet Saldin knows intimately—what it feels like to be an outcast, and the sickening sense of shame you get when you’ve done something terrible that you can't ever take back.

Let me repeat that I am not suggesting this novel (or the others mentioned) are autobiographical. There is a difference between telling the truth and conveying what is true. The most successful writers are able to tap into the murky pools of their pasts and translate those complex and universal feelings onto the page.

I heard an interview with Alice Walker once on NPR. She was talking about why she became a writer, and she said that she could trace it back to her eighth year. There is something about this age, 7 or 8 or so, she explained. It’s around the time when a child is first going out of the home and slowly becoming aware that there are other ways to live. You go to school and meet many other children. You notice that other families are different from yours. You start to look at yourself and your own world and compare. It is then that many kids make a subconscious (or not so subconscious) effort to fit in, to be like everyone else.

But what if something traumatic happens at this time in your life, something that makes you painfully aware that things—that you—are different? These hurting children may spend more time alone. They might turn to books for escape. They become more self-reflective. In other words, they’re potentially training to be writers. Here’s a funny thing: I can’t remember what it was that happened to little Alice Walker. I’m sure she mentioned her traumatic event in this interview, but all I was thinking about was the year I was seven. It was the year my father died. Which set in motion other events, like a string of dysfunctional dominoes knocking one onto the next.

When I was in college, taking writing classes, my first stories were thinly veiled autobiographical pieces. I was writing what I knew, as the writing teachers like to say we should. But really, what I was doing was more like psychotherapy. I remember sitting with a professor in his office as he scanned one of my embarrassingly painful, bared-heart-on-a-page vignettes. God knows what the poor man was thinking. (Actually, I can guess. Something along the lines of, this girl needs professional help.) Instead, we both pretended this story was just a story, and he said, “here’s something you can try. Write it again in third person. It might give you a little…uh…distance.”

I did. And it worked. A raw wound grew into a story with something real and moving at its center.

We all have scars. Some of us, though, seem to have collected a few more along the way, or we have a harder time letting go of them. Some of us figured out what I did in college: there was a wealth of material there if I was courageous enough to explore it, and if I was clever enough to manipulate what I needed. Then the trick is to let go of the "facts" and write.