August 4, 2016 by Amy
Dear Henry, let’s talk chickens
I’ve been reading about writing lately, which is not as good as actually writing, but some days it’s the best I can do.
And I keep being reminded, over and over, that the only way to be a writer is to actually sit down and write. Duh. This sounds easier than it is. Butt in chair is surprisingly difficult. At least it is for me, right now.
Stephen King says, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
He also said, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs,” which is awesome and true, but that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother post.
He’s actually got quite a few good quotes about how sitting down to do the work is the hardest part, but I’m too lazy to go look them up right now.
When I was journalism school, my favorite professor was a crotchety old adman named Henry Hager. He was of the 3-martini-lunch generation who didn’t cotton to the newfangled sensibility that it wasn’t a good idea to get hammered halfway through the work day. He bought me my first martini, Henry did, that next year when I went from being his student to being his teaching assistant.
One of the exercises he had us do was write him a letter each week. One page, double-spaced. It could be about anything we wanted. It was an exercise in sitting down and just letting the words flow. It was my favorite homework ever, even the weeks when I struggled to find something worthwhile to write. He read every single one of our letters, leaving comments about the writing or the content or both. I treasured them. At the end of the term, we were to choose our favorite ten, print them out and bind them, and hand them in. He gave us a grade that didn’t really matter in the scheme of the semester, and handed it back. I still have staple-bound packet, and it’s one of my most treasured possessions. A snapshot into my life as an undergrad journalism student dating a cute engineer who lived hundreds of miles away. Now, as a crotchety old person myself, I understand that the whole point of our turning in our ten favorites as a collection was that it gave us something to hold on to, a package. I may have all those loose letters somewhere, but I doubt it. I only have the packet because he made me make it.
I should get back into that routine of writing whatever I want, stream of consciousness, regularly. I can write to Henry. He’s pushing up daisies now; I cried when I read his obituary in my alumni magazine a few years ago. But I could still write to him, or at least to the idea of him. I imagine he’d get a kick out of it, even if I’m as far away from Hemingway as you can get.
Dear Henry,
I have two friends who are amazing and who keep me laughing and who keep me grounded. Well, I have more friends who do that than just two, but for this letter we’re talking about these two phenomenal women. We call ourselves The Chickens, mainly because of many experiences and jokes that all stem from a Jenny Lawson blog post. We didn’t start out calling ourselves The Chickens, but we ended up there and now our husbands call us that and, apparently, so do our children.
It’s incredible how well our children know us, despite the front we try to present to them. “Oh, hey, I’m your super-cool, awesome mom who always has her act together, who loves you more than you could ever imagine” is what we like to think we are. Instead, my kid is all, “Oh, hey, you’re my mom who tries really hard and who is innately human and therefore makes plenty of mistakes, and who loves me more than I could ever imagine but sometimes just needs some beer and a good cry.”
We were taking Zoe to camp on Sunday and I was doing my whole Woe-is-Me routine about how I was going to miss her and how she was going to have all the fun while I had to go to work every day. I lamented, “What will I do without you?” And she deadpanned, “You’ll get together with The Chickens and drink wine.”
Touché.
Just for your information, I haven’t seen my chickens at all this week. This is my busy season at work (well, busier season…there’s never really a slow season) and I’ve been putting in long hours. And I got my hair cut last night. Which, come to think of it, is a lame excuse for not getting together with friends. But still, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t just get together with my friends and drink wine, although I do that sometimes and with enough regularity that my daughter has lodged it in her head, and therefore knows when she grows up and becomes a busy mom that it’s important to have chickens. And wine.
So maybe I’m doing okay at this mothering thing after all.
Today’s pretty picture is from Sunday’s sunset. We dropped the kiddo off at camp and picked up the car with only two seats and went for a Sunday drive.
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