Heart Journeys

Why I Write

I have many siblings, my parents obviously loved each other quite a bit. A story my mother likes to tell is of when I was six or seven years old. Some of my sisters may or may not have been living at home anymore though even if they were gone by then there were still plenty of us to do chores at dinnertime. Whether it was sweeping the floor, setting the table, or doing dishes everyone had a job and those jobs rotated every week. With so many siblings and me being the youngest my job was to write a story for everyone at dinner. Mom saw the writing potential in me, it kept me busy and out of everyone’s way as my siblings prepared for dinner. I have no recollection of this and no examples exist anymore. Such a shame.

Flash forward to third grade, that’s when writing assignments really started in school. I remember two stories from then, The Great Snowball Fight (a true story with just the right amount of embellishment) and The Gabberdabber in which I woke up transformed into a gargoyle-like creature. Don’t worry I was friendly but I could fly and how cool is that for a seven or eight-year-old? I still have both of those stories written in cursive so I guess my youngest two kids will never be able to read them. Thus started my love of reading and writing. By the time I was in my tweens I would walk to the used bookstore at the corner and find fantasy trilogies to read over the weekend. Those were the days I tell ya!

Fast forward again to my junior year at high school aka The Rebellion! I had passions which my father could not relate to and, being just 15 years old at the beginning of the year, I rebelled significantly. My grades dropped to straight “I’s” for incomplete. The teachers refused to fail me because they understood I was going through something which they could not identify. Nevertheless, by March of that year I informed my parents I was dropping out of school. I wasn’t having fun which is code for they are boring me to death with this material, I need a challenge. Rather than let that happen my parents arranged for me to live with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in New Mexico. Straight back to straight A’s and interested involvement. I had a reading class for the remainder of junior year where we read books and then wrote reports examining the author’s use of imagery and wording along with other literary practices. I immediately made both friends and money charging $5 per report to write other people’s papers which they then copied in their own handwriting. In retrospect it seems I may have been a precursor to AI for those classmates. In my senior year I had an aerospace class. At the beginning of the year we were given a quiz so the teacher could assess our knowledge base individually. I knew nothing of airplanes, flight or the principals thereof. I had, however, found my writing self again. My quiz ended up being a very short story about an Aileron named Yaw from the planet Venturi. If you know anything about airplanes or flight dynamics you’re laughing right now, you’re welcome. I was back!

Shortly after graduating tragedy struck when my father was hit by a car and died. I didn’t cope well nor did I bother to spiral downward, I did what in skydiving we referred to as a “foil”. It’s when you curve your body to reach speeds in excess of terminal velocity. A 120-mph freefall wasn’t fast enough for me figuratively speaking so I pushed it harder. Once again I was lost. I bought into and enabled the lie of “I’m going to take a year off.” Seven years later I applied to a community college. I placed in an Honors English course though I couldn’t figure out why for the life of me. It bored me so I rarely went to classes that were only two days a week. One of the girls in the class would hunt me down on campus and let me know of homework assignments so I could turn them in on time. One day she ran up to me on campus and said “I’ve been looking for you for days. We have a major assignment due tomorrow!” You can read that assignment here:

Not only did the teacher give me an A+ he also published the story in the school paper. He tried to get my permission but as I said I wasn’t exactly going to class.

Within a couple of years my fun and awesome rare genetic defect began to wake up. Slowly at first, then it seemed to feel the need to make up for two and a half decades of dormancy. I had gotten married in an insta-family sort of way with two stepdaughters right off the bat. After my first daughter was born my wife did not return to work. Needless to say I worked a lot and had even stopped reading for pleasure. By my mid 30’s my anemia that was caused by the genetic defect began to take a heavy toll on my body and mind. Concentrating was difficult. I stopped reading completely and the only writing I did were white papers for work. Not exactly fun writing but I was good at it nonetheless.

Since then my health has continued to deteriorate. I have been severely chronically anemic for three decades which has led to multiple problems. I have a torn meniscus from skiing when I was 17 that went undiscovered until June of ’22. They won’t do surgery on it unless my labs reach a level they haven’t been at for two decades. I won’t go into detail but I will say that my condition, severe HHT, causes daily bleeding. This has affected my liver and kidneys now which is causing even more issues, it used to be confined to my sinuses. I have been told by my hematologist to stop driving for a living because of energy dumps that make me need to sleep with five or ten minutes' notice. I have been fighting homelessness for ten years due to inconsistent and unreliable income. Depression and hopelessness are frequent companions that have been winning this daily battle for some time. My children have stopped speaking with me, even my 13-year-old daughter. That’s more a function of the mother than anything else but it doesn’t change the reality. I want so badly to give up hope yet I know when I write I have the power to make others smile and that’s really what I’ve always loved doing.

So here I am. This is why I write. With the exception of this portion of my story I write to bring smiles, provoke thought or just let others going through hell know that regardless of the personal path that got you there you’re not alone. Maybe by working together some of us can get out.

I’ll finish up with a poem I wrote at 3 am this morning. Not that I don’t sleep but I don’t sleep. I’ve never written a poem before. I wouldn’t know a sonnet from a limerick, yes, I had to look those terms up. I hope you enjoy it and if you don’t, hey at least it’s short.

Progression

We gather here to share our words our thoughts and our ideals

If we do well we sustain each other as if we’re sharing meals

Yet who is hungry?

Some do this to escape or learn or share a simple smile

Others for camaraderie or just to pass the while

But who is listening?

There is no right or wrong in these we each have our own reasons

They differ for each one of us more varied than the seasons

And so we write.

Philip 31Mar2023