I should start this by saying, I dislike violence. I don't watch
police shows and can't tolerate people punching each other. I also
don't include it in any of my writing.
I should backtrack to say I grew up in the Sixties, in the suburbs of Los Angeles in a neighborhood that was middle class. There were a lot of professionals on my street and one of my favorite memories is of my neighbor, who was a jockey. On weekend afternoons, in off-season, after he had a bit to drink, he liked to hitch up his kids on the rear open door of his station wagon and then he’d take off down the hill. I can still see his son tumbling out, his puny father red-faced and gunning the engine.
However, my parents didn't engage in these type of activities. My mother insisted that my upbringing be sheltered. Why she wasn’t concerned about my brother Alfred, I don’t know, but she shielded me from violence; including television shows, movies and people and decided I shouldn't be near them. Being sensitive as I am, it was a wise decision on her part. However, whenever I saw anything remotely tough, such as kids falling, I'd let out the biggest scream you ever heard, (I often scared others with the shriek of my voice) was petrified, immobilized and later would have a nightmare.
I’m medium height now, but when I was young I was always the tallest. I had pale skin and was always bruised or eaten up by mosquitoes. Despite being articulate and gifted at the art of argument, I was not a threat. I'd give pennies to kids not to step on ants. However, I did have a journal that I wrote in faithfully. Every night I wrote down my thoughts and placed the journal under my bed. If I knew the cleaning lady was coming, I'd stash it into a tin, and hide it in a drawer. And every morning before I went off to breakfast, I read my journal and laughed. Unfortunately, one summer when a couple of kids were playing hide-n-seek at my house (we were always at our house, never at theirs) one of my friends hid under my bed and read the journal. I only found this out later.
There was a girl on our street who was an Amazon. Huge, powerful, strong, and I wrote down in my journal, meaning it as a compliment, she could have been the leader of the Green Berets. She didn’t take that well. I, oblivious, walked into the circle of girls one afternoon and she started spatting out words from my journal. Then she was coming at me, when my brother intervened and she punched him instead. She got into trouble. He spent the rest of the week with a bandage over his nose and my mother made me stay home and told me to watch musicals.
But I still remember the horror of the moment when I realized she was coming my way. That was the most terrifying moment. It was the feeling of exposure. Like people who don't know a writer and are reading their words and criticizing them. It’s something I think about at the start of a new semester. I understand when I see how nervous my students are about having strangers read their work and I sympathize. We all just want some mercy.
How about you? Have you ever gotten into trouble with your writing or been able to laugh at it afterwards?
I should backtrack to say I grew up in the Sixties, in the suburbs of Los Angeles in a neighborhood that was middle class. There were a lot of professionals on my street and one of my favorite memories is of my neighbor, who was a jockey. On weekend afternoons, in off-season, after he had a bit to drink, he liked to hitch up his kids on the rear open door of his station wagon and then he’d take off down the hill. I can still see his son tumbling out, his puny father red-faced and gunning the engine.
However, my parents didn't engage in these type of activities. My mother insisted that my upbringing be sheltered. Why she wasn’t concerned about my brother Alfred, I don’t know, but she shielded me from violence; including television shows, movies and people and decided I shouldn't be near them. Being sensitive as I am, it was a wise decision on her part. However, whenever I saw anything remotely tough, such as kids falling, I'd let out the biggest scream you ever heard, (I often scared others with the shriek of my voice) was petrified, immobilized and later would have a nightmare.
I’m medium height now, but when I was young I was always the tallest. I had pale skin and was always bruised or eaten up by mosquitoes. Despite being articulate and gifted at the art of argument, I was not a threat. I'd give pennies to kids not to step on ants. However, I did have a journal that I wrote in faithfully. Every night I wrote down my thoughts and placed the journal under my bed. If I knew the cleaning lady was coming, I'd stash it into a tin, and hide it in a drawer. And every morning before I went off to breakfast, I read my journal and laughed. Unfortunately, one summer when a couple of kids were playing hide-n-seek at my house (we were always at our house, never at theirs) one of my friends hid under my bed and read the journal. I only found this out later.
There was a girl on our street who was an Amazon. Huge, powerful, strong, and I wrote down in my journal, meaning it as a compliment, she could have been the leader of the Green Berets. She didn’t take that well. I, oblivious, walked into the circle of girls one afternoon and she started spatting out words from my journal. Then she was coming at me, when my brother intervened and she punched him instead. She got into trouble. He spent the rest of the week with a bandage over his nose and my mother made me stay home and told me to watch musicals.
But I still remember the horror of the moment when I realized she was coming my way. That was the most terrifying moment. It was the feeling of exposure. Like people who don't know a writer and are reading their words and criticizing them. It’s something I think about at the start of a new semester. I understand when I see how nervous my students are about having strangers read their work and I sympathize. We all just want some mercy.
How about you? Have you ever gotten into trouble with your writing or been able to laugh at it afterwards?
