I Tell Stories In My Kitchen

 

Ernest Hemmingway was known for his story telling; however, many may not know that the reading public perhaps saw at most ten percent of his writings. I am no Ernest Hemmingway. Yet, I have evolved as a writer since age seven when I’d started to enjoy writing.

I had no idea what would come of my writing. My mother didn’t always give encouragement to it. She’d expressed that writers always had sad lives. She’d mentioned Mark Twain, who I’d thought highly of what little I’d read of his works. The rest of my immediate family as a child were big readers. My older brother, Don, read all Tom Sawyer’s adventures, The Hardy Boys, Agatha Christie novels and the like. My dad read Thor Heyerdahl’s Aku-Aku, Kon-Tiki and similar books. My mother read quite a bit as well. I cannot recall what she’d read; however, she was always reading when not doing a chore or at work. My little sister more than thirteen years my junior I am uncertain of what she’d read or currently reads; however, I believe it was on current events, psychology and sociological happenings.

For myself, reading was always a difficult task. Teachers thought it was because I couldn’t see. Eye appointments proved them wrong. No one considered learning disabilities in the 1960’s going into the mid 1970’s. Basically, if you had a reading problem you were left to your own devices to figure it out. No one realized I could read, it was that I couldn’t keep focus. I’d get confused while I read, especially if it was longer than a paragraph.

Even writing this piece, I looked at the word typed above, ‘paragraph’ and thought how odd it was spelt—yet I knew it was correct. When I read there’s always uncertainty, yet I pursue the reading. Writing has the opposite effect on me. Yet I know I write way too fast, and at times in huge volumes covering hours in a day—as much as sixteen hours in a sitting. Not all I write is published or shown to the public eye.

The family I once had after the family I was born into has mostly dissipated into something I no longer recognize. It seems that it had come and gone in a flash. But so has the three or four lifetimes I’ve lived in 63 years. Yes, I’ve lived more lives than most. One of my coaches, Tom Fleming thirty years ago said, “Jody, you have more lives than a cat.” I wondered then if that were all so true. I now concur he had been correct.

So, this morning as I stood in the kitchen I began to tell a story. Yes, I tell stories in my kitchen every day before I write. It’s as if my deceased husband is waiting for his coffee as we chat about the goings on with the children and the world. ---Jody-Lynn Reicher