My family has decided it’s time for me to get a life. I’m a loner if ever there was one, and getting worse by the year. Which is sad in a way, because I like people. Especially I like people who will visit me. I’m one of those mama types who wants to feed everybody, and nothing makes me happier than a roomful of people clamoring for dinner.
Over the years, though, my circle of friends has fallen away. I spent years in Vegas without a friend who wasn’t family, and to be honest I never regretted it. But living in Portland, with Drew on the road and only a game-addicted ten-year-old boy for company, I find myself in danger of being cut off from adult companionship altogether. Social atrophy is setting in. So as a palliative measure I’m doing something I never thought I’d find the courage to do. I’m joining a writers group. The group is a brand new one so I’m not sure exactly how this will go, but I’m going to try. We’ll be meeting once a month in a sculptor’s studio that belongs to one of the writers. A cool place to gather, right? Surely there will be a creative vibe. And there will be other bashful writer-types, clutching their sweaty pages, passing them around and hoping for the best. Surely I’ll be able to remember my name and think of something not-awful to say about myself and keep my voice steady and my face from turning pink, and sit in a room full of people and be helpful and a fucking person and not an unbearable ass.
If everyone else appears confident and self-possessed, I’m out of there.
What are you still working on, after all these years?
Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth
