When I was in college, I convinced the editor of the campus paper to let me have my own column. I had no freaking idea what I would write about but I knew I had opinions, some were funny, and the writer beast in me needed to be fed. The column was called The Graffiti and it was just that - random observations sprayed at the literary wall about an event of the week. Colorful, non-didactic, and often giving words to what people don’t want to say. A bit over the top for a Jesuit school? Perhaps, but I knew my win was the day a random student said, “Are you the girl that writes that column? It was funny.” Of course, I couldn’t really take it in. We can’t as writers, because if we get too full of ourselves, then we don’t have that self-deprecating fear that pushes us to the laptop to try one more time to write less shitty.
When I wrote about the Disney on Ice show in 1990 that an old friend was in as Daisy Duck, I unveiled the truth behind what the “characters” did after hours. Lots of drugs, underpaid conditions, but also a band of merry misfits jovially waving from ice rink to ice rink across the world to ebullient children.
I stopped column writing until this column emerged from the deepest part of my desire to no longer write to sell myself as a book coach, or sell a book. Just to make people happy, angry, laugh, cry, feel something. We all need to feel something. And boy did I feel the feelings when I signed the freelance agreement for my essay in the LA Times. It releases this Friday (2/3) on line for L.A. Affairs. It is in print on Sunday (2/5). If you could pay the $1 trial fee to read it, it supports the livelihood of papers giving space to unheard voices.
When the Deputy Editor sent me the proof yesterday, I was washed with a sense of exposure and vulnerability. I said to my daughter, “It’s so… personal.” She said with the candor of a teen, “Of course it is. That’s why they like it.” Still knowing this, I felt all the tears come up my throat and then down my checks as I filled in my W-9 and sent a copy of a voided check to be paid. I am being PAID for an essay in a paper. I wish I could transfer how that felt to you so you could be motivated to do it to. And if you have, you know exactly how I feel. It’s better than sex. Well, not really, but pretty close on an average day.
I am releasing my usual column on Sunday, but this one is a special edition and I hope I didn’t bother you too much sliding into your in box early.
If no one has told you today they love you, I love you. xo