I’m a huge fan of Pamela Anderson, I always have been. As an impressionable girl of the ’90s and early 2000s, I secretly wanted to be her. To look like her, to be desired like her, and even work like her, and I’m happy to report how parallel our lives have become. Not because I’ve attained any of the notable traits mentioned above but because of a far more compelling commonality: Taste in writing style.
I know this because I subscribe to her newsletter, a journal entry delivered directly to my mailbox each week, where I’ve recognized a pleasant pattern in her prose: it always comes to a positive point, a special spin on things, or a thoughtful takeaway. Sure, there is tons of negativity available, but she makes it her business to highlight the good, to wrap it up in a pretty bow.
Maybe that’s why I miss writing so much. Writing is my only craft, of my dilettante collection of curiosities, that forces me to seek a moral out and design a journey to arrive at it. To acknowledge the obstacle, give it power, and then derive one’s power from it.
That’s my life story, and I miss the time I was able to spend writing it before my real life got in the way.
And I braced myself for it too. My subconscious did everything it could to pad the blow and protect me from how painful it would be to live. To be in my life rather than using it to weave gold thread. It’s scary to be in the middle of a story where you are both the protagonist and omniscient narrator without an outline to follow, a light to aim for. A direction, maybe, but the consciousness shrouded in the dark robes of mystery instead of knowingness.
This isn’t to say my life is dark; quite the contrary. Still, there is an element of suffocation, of being so deeply immersed in the action that the third-person telling of the tale falls away, and I am left frighteningly unaware that I am not alone. When I write, I am accompanied by my past and future selves, both of whom color the dynamic evolution of my character and give the throughline meaning, a character who paints the pages of a life that happens to be mine right now. But the Present, she is a secret keeper and will not tell me what happens next.
To soothe my fearful mind, I fill it with silly things. Plot points and exposition, a variety of options to pick from, like a garden of purple flowers. Some lavender, some hydrangea, others I can’t name but recognize as native to the region. And while some of the flora may not survive the harsh winter, I plant them. While I may not be able to carry enough water on my back to quench their roots, I plant them. Although weeds may grow within the bed, thoughts of doubt and insecurity, I plant them. I must because it is in my nature to do so.
I am learning: not to punish myself for this nature, to not act as judge and executioner of my desire to create, to nurture something out of nothingness. To embrace the whimsy, not fear it. Dance with it in the moonlight on those rare evenings her glow is so strong the sky shows no stars. To embrace the hero’s journey. To love my character.
Past, future, and present.