How Did I Get Here?

I've been doing a lot of blog reading lately, which has me thinking about how I got here, and why I'm writing. Text has always been the medium where I've been most comfortable. I started writing at 11 or 12, shortly after my dad drilled grammar rules into my head through many tearful home-school sessions. After memorizing 436 proofreading symbols, I finally learned to love words.

My first online platform was "Teen-Open-Diary". Yes, it was as bad as it sounds. This was before MySpace was on anyone's radar. I created an "anonymous" profile, which I promptly emailed to my closest friends, and I began to write with gusto. I filled page after page of internet content with my every angst-filled teenage thought. "Relationship" trials, school drama, prayers, tears, depression. I treated that platform like my personal diary - completely uncensored as though no one was reading it. I cringe now, remembering that I thrived off of the drama my "honesty" created. Eventually the open-diary network was hacked one too many times and shut down, gratefully leaving me with only a few entries in my hardback journal as a reminder of the emotion-crazed pre-teen I was.

Shortly thereafter I joined a new youth group and found out that - wait - there are some deep, dark thoughts that only a few should know about? And the opposite sex shouldn't be on that list (especially at 15)? So, I stopped writing in all public forums and began to write for myself. I internalized everything that year, filling two journals and a sketchbook. I wrote pages of letters that I never sent, and some that I did. In that year I laid aside several destructive relationships and began to learn to relate to real people in real ways. This was a process. I can't tell you how many hours I wasted trying to speak my heart only to give up and write it down, passing it to the person across from me. Writing became a form of bondage for me.

Because this continued to be a problem, someone challenged me to give it up for a season and told me that, "It's out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, not the pen writes." I laid my pen down and put the journals aside. That year I learned to talk. I learned to voice my heart. I was no longer bound to the pen. But I still didn't trust it. I was afraid that in this medium where I felt so comfortable I would say too much.

I tried for a while to write anonymously through Xanga, but I gave up after 5 entries the first time I crossed the line of "too personal" - even though no one was reading it. Then my friends jumped on the blogger bandwagon. I quickly found where I was safe - writing exclusively about the things the Lord was teaching me. I spoke only of struggles in the past-tense, from the side of victory. Prudence dictated that I keep things on a surface level while I learned to safely relate to the opposite sex, both virtually and physically. Eventually it came naturally - at least in person. But when it comes to writing, I have danced on eggshells for years, careful not to say anything that might later incriminate me.

I've realized that as a 22 year old young woman I can trust myself with a pen again. With some maturity has come discernment, proven in the fact that the hand-written version of this (I'm a little old-fashioned that way) has sentences with lines through them that won't end up in my final draft.

I want to tell my stories - both past and present. To testify of what I have been saved from, now safely removed from who I used to be. Maybe by removing the vague cloud that has covered my writing, I'll find out that I am not alone. And maybe... you will too.

Dear Mrs. Polacco

This is a letter I recently wrote to our favorite childrens author after discovering some new books of hers. I somewhat vaguely reference the content of some of our favorite stories in the letter, so if you don't understand, you'll just have to read the books. Consider this my wholehearted endorsement of her.

Dear Mrs. Polacco,

I feel as though I’m sitting down to write an old friend instead of a stranger. You and your books have been a part of my life since I was a small child of five or six. My father – of six daughters and no sons – has a great appreciation for childrens literature. But he has exacting tastes. He never purchased a book that he wouldn’t mind reading to us over and over, judging them on their artwork as much as the story. There were few “Golden Books” on our shelves and Disney characters were banned from our literature. Still, we had two towering shelves in our bedroom filled to capacity. Many were purchased at garage sales and thrift stores – with so many mouths to feed there wasn’t much extra money.

My Poppie came across “Thundercake” at a garage sale one day and loved it for the story and the painted illustrations. There’s no doubt he purchased it for under 10 cents. He always drove a hard bargain when it came to used books. It had stray crayon marks on the hardback cover and a strangers name in the flyleaf, but it quickly became one of our favorites. Thunderstorms are a daily occurrence on summer afternoons in south Louisiana. My younger sister, Jordan, and I would sit at the big living room window listening to the thunder, counting aloud, and watching for lightning to follow to determine how far the storm was.

After we discovered “Thundercake” your books were added to our library gradually through school book fairs and catalogs. They were gifts at holidays and birthdays. My daddy made a tradition of reading to us each night as he’d done with my older sisters (we were the babies of the family). He would squeeze his 6’4” frame into one of our twin beds with a little girl on each arm and fall asleep reading to us. I don’t think I ever heard the end of “Pink and Say” until I was fifteen and finished it on my own (with tissues of course!). Poppie would fall asleep in the middle of the story without fail.

Before long our family adopted the phrase, “Such a person, such a person.” It was high praise in our minds to be endowed with that title. The “Tooth Angel” was known to write us notes that she left with our Susan B. Anthony silver dollars and I recall more than one occasion she told me I was “such a person.” That always set my little-girl-heart glowing.

Jordan and I are grown up now and sharing an apartment where “Thundercake” is a part of our personal library. My older sisters have scattered the country with their families and produced two grandchildren for my parents – more girls, of course! We are the only ones that remain close to home. Jordan is a page at the local library and was delighted to discover that you’ve written more books than we knew existed. We already own a dozen or more, but stopped collecting when we got into our teens. I’ve made my parents swear to keep and add to their childrens library to entertain grandchildren – the ones they have and the ones Jordan and I hope to give them someday.

Jordan found “The Junkyard Wonders” at the library a couple of weeks ago. She held onto it until we had occasion to visit my parents so we could read it together. The other night we all sat around while Jordan read aloud to us with her best librarians’ cadence. Her voice broke when she reached the end of the book. We were all crying – including my dear, tender-hearted Poppie. When she got to the last page she could only read haltingly, choking back sobs over the success each of you “Wonders” have achieved. You have long been our favorite childrens’ author, but you have won our affections all over again with this treasure.

After finishing “The Junkyard Wonders” we sat around recalling memories that surround your books. “Mrs. Katz and Tush” was dear to me because of my love for cats. “Rechenkas’ Eggs” stirred our mischievousness and we were known to often decorate my mothers’ eggs and place them back into the refrigerator, uncooked. We made real Thundercake for the first time at Fathers’ Day last summer, topped with fresh Louisiana strawberries. Before eating it we sat around with our friends, laughing while one of them read the book to us with a horribly botched Russian accent that sounded more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than a Babushka. Your books are the center of sweet memories indeed.

So, thank you, for memories past and the ones to come. Thank you for sharing your imagination and your heart with us. Mrs. Polacco, you are “such a person” to us and we will cherish your stories for generations to come.

With love on behalf of the Ward Family,

Rebekah Ward

Moving.

Recently I helped someone move. I thought that I would only have to show up and help move boxes that were already packed. The reality was entirely different. We arrived to find piles of household items around the perimeter of every room amidst the furniture. Only a handful of boxes were packed. Not to mention the closets and bathrooms were completely untouched. It was overwhelming, and it needed to be moved within a few hours.

Then I ventured upstairs to the Master Bedroom. Here, the closet was overflowing into the middle of the room where the bed was before. Piles of blankets, clothes, school supplies, books, cassette tapes, decorations – 4 feet high and 3-6 feet wide were stacked around the perimeter of the room in a pitifully failed attempt to organize before the move. I was armed with bags and boxes, but I didn’t know where to begin. For a few minutes I just sort of stood in the center of the room, dumbfounded, picking things up and aimlessly sorting through them. I was on sensory overload.

However, I was rescued. A girl friend was there to help, while the guys were ready to haul boxes and bags to the waiting trailer. She entered the room, grabbed a bag and started emptying the closet into it, with no rhyme or reason. No matter what – it was getting out of the room. I watched her for a moment before I opened a bag and started stuffing bedding into it until it was full. That was all it took for me to gain the motivation and momentum I needed. As long as she was moving, so was I. There was no time to stand there gaping at all of the stuff we were packing up. I had a singular thought - Move. Open another box, stuff another bag, just get it out of there. We talked, laughed, and she even sang as we worked. A constant stream of men were tromping up the stairs with empty arms, ready to haul each bag or box we crammed full. Steadily, the room began to empty out. We were finished in under an hour, and had fun doing it.

We moved on to tackle the closets, bathrooms, and kitchen. I had a rhythm now and was fine working alone. With all the help, the apartment was emptied in about 3 hours. It was a sizable accomplishment that left me feeling satisfied over the work.

It occurred to me that I’m approaching my mind and heart the same way I did that bedroom. It’s been so long since I’ve gone in and unpacked the things crammed in there. Writing typically gives me the outlet I need to go in, sort through things, make sense of them and come out with a clean slate. Whether it’s through an email, blog post, or in my journal. As long as I did it regularly it wouldn’t become overwhelming. But lately, I’m overwhelmed. It’s been a few months since I’ve written much of anything. I think I’m a little afraid of what might come out of me, because I know that once I’ve written something down, it suddenly becomes much easier to say. With words. And who knows what could come out of my mouth, what sort of things I could find myself admitting.

God has blessed me with some amazing friends. Sisters that are willing to dive into the chaos with me, help me dig around, and start to find some order in all of this. One friend recently challenged me to get to the bottom of things and clean everything out. I needed the motivation that came from seeing her perspective. And so I’m going in armed to clean everything out, to empty this chamber of my heart that I’ve left too long untouched. I’m ready to break up – forever – this pattern of walking in, looking around, feeling overwhelmed, and walking out, trying to forget it’s there. This passage from today’s My Utmost for His Highest spoke so clearly to me:

“How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away with the feeling – ‘Oh well, I’ve done it this time!’ And yet you go away with nothing, whilst all the time God has stood with outstretched hands not only to take you, but for you to take Him. Think of the invincible, unconquerable, unwearying patience of Jesus, saying, ‘Come unto Me.’ “

I’m not through yet. I’ve hardly started. But it’s going to get done, even if I have to throw everything out at once. I am so grateful that my God is so patient with me.