Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Most of my friends know that I read my creative non-fiction at Indiana University Northwest's College of Arts and Sciences Conference last week on the panel of "Satire and Sadness, Violence and Prejudice: Contours of the Human Condition" and many have asked to hear or read what I presented there. Based on how well received my writing was, I have decided to post it, soooo here we go...

My name is Jennifer Thompson. I’m an English major and a writer. My creative non-fiction has been published in IUN’s literary magazine Spirits, and Glamour Magazine. “Creative non-fiction is also known as literary journalism. It is the art of telling a true story as if it were fiction, using scenes, shifting viewpoints, dialogue and well-rendered prose. Like fiction, most works of creative nonfiction contain a plot but with an important difference; in creative nonfiction, the account must be true.*” I’ll be presenting excerpts from an unpublished compilation of pieces chronicling the demise of my marriage and my foray into independence entitled, “Essays from a Broken Heart.” The first piece I’m reading today is a personal essay I wrote as an introduction to this memoir.

Off I go…where I fall…is where I land
He worked until 7 at night, and then of course his evening mixed martial arts classes were always more important than his family, so we hardly ever saw him. It was just me and my little ones, and we were happy…for the most part. It was that one or two days a week when the clock hit 7pm and I heard the garage door open that I’d immediately tense. I’d brace myself, clench my jaw and prepare to see the man I married but no longer felt married to. The man who lived in the basement, separate from the family, the man who’d broken my heart with his cruelty and distance, the man we rarely saw. I know I became someone else when he was around, the tension was visible and I was always short with the kids. For months I babysat, saving every dime for the day when I could free me and my children. I constantly wondered how much more we could take, as the tension was just as hard on the kids.
Then came the day when it hit me, I had to get out now. No more waiting around, no more saving…I had to escape. After getting my daughter and son bathed and ready for bed with laughter and silly songs I heard it, that dreaded garage door opening. Brushing my 4 year old little guy’s teeth I didn’t realize how tense I had become until he cried out in pain. “Mom, you’re brushing too hard.” And I had been. I’d been trying to scrub the disaster that my life with my husband had become out of my baby’s teeth. I immediately noticed I was grinding my teeth, breathing shallow and my tense shoulders were shrugged up to my ears… and I felt horrible. What was I doing to my kids with all this stress? I kissed my baby and finished getting him ready for bed.
After the kids had gone to sleep I sat in my room trying to figure things out. Sure, I had a couple thousand in the bank, but that wasn’t enough to do a whole lot with. A stay-at-home mom for the last several years, it’s not like I had steady income. The next morning I started looking for any job that would have me, and it didn’t take long for me to find one. Sure, I’d be working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week but the commissions would be great and I could get out. My husband had to give up his mma classes, the grandparents had to step up and cover the gaps in parenting but I was out there, working to change my life. I had enough saved to procure my own apartment in just a month, and then we did it…we left.
Disentangling from a man that I had spent 40% of my life with, separating the years of “our” stuff and packing up my life was hard and painful. I couldn’t bring myself to disassemble the kids’ rooms that I had decorated with so much love. Leaving our town, our friends and our home we set out to begin our new lives. Terrified of failing but determined to try, I braced myself for the challenges ahead.

As a writer of creative non-fiction, I frequently adjust the voice that my stories are told in, depending on the subject matter, the audience and the desired effect on the reader. Voice is the personality a piece is given. Voice is the writer bearing a bit of themselves to the reader. Voice is the passion, the life, breathed into those particular words. It can be used to convey emotion, set the mood, and draw a reader into the writer’s perspective. The next piece I’m reading was written in a more formal voice, as a short story for Professor Bill Buckley’s Writing Fiction class. This class was my first experience with Professor Buckley and he quickly became my mentor. A never ending source of inspiration and motivation, he constantly encourages me to write, never accepting my excuses or complaints when it comes to my creative non-fiction, though I can occasionally get away with that for class work.

“Ohhh shit there goes my ex”
Thrilled to be starting a new chapter of my life, the excitement builds as I sit inside the cramped, single-propeller plane, straddling the random guy in front of me.
“It’s a metaphor,” I tell myself, “I’m jumping out of my old life and into my new.”
My ex husband sits in front, blankly staring out the windows and my best friend at my left is ghostly pale. As it became clear to me that after 12 years together a divorce was inevitable, I realized I needed something symbolic to mark this change in life. I had this vision of myself perched at the door of a plane and looking back at my ex as I leave him and our life together and dive into my new life with my best friend right beside me.
“I hate you, why did you make me do this?” Kelly asks me.
“Because it’s awesome,” I reply, ever so glib.
Now, climbing to 14,000 feet, I realize that I was right…this was a great idea! Jump away from the bitterness and miserable fighting, soar thru the air of freedom and land a new, independent woman, ready to take on whatever life decides to throw at me.
“I have the best ideas,” I tell myself, “This was exactly what I wanted and needed this to be.” I’m ecstatic, I’m pumped, I’m ready.
I watch out the window of the plane that has packed in so many people, we look and feel like sardines, legs wrapped around the strangers in front of one another. The freezing cold air gives me goosebumps through my hot pink jumpsuit, the smell of 20 people is almost nauseating, and the cocky asshole that I’ll be jumping tandem with keeps yapping in my ear, but I don’t notice any of it. I watch the horribleness that has been these last three years get smaller and smaller, as does the world.
The door rolls up on the side of the plane, and my excitement and hopes for this to be something incredible fly out with the first jumpers, and panic sets in.
“The door just opened. Plane doors aren’t supposed to open. Holy shit, what the hell was I thinking? Jumping out of a plane as metaphor for life? Seriously?? Why do I always do this? Why am I the girl who always has to do the crazy stunts?”
People continue to tumble out the door of the plane.
“Ohhh shit there goes my ex!” Scooting on my knees toward the door I know that my turn is next and every fiber of my being wants to grab hold of something and not let go. Simple pride engages with my survival instinct and it’s a battle to the death. Pride takes the victory and I’m at the door.
“We roll forward on three,” the cocky asshole yells in my ear.
I know it’s too late to back out now, I shut my eyes and clench my teeth and pray that I’ll remember everything from the class on what to do, and if not that the cocky asshole does.
“One…”
“Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.”
“Two…”
“I’m a fucking idiot, what’s wrong with me.”
“Three!”
Out we roll, tumbling thru the air at 120 miles an hour, before I remember to arch my back to align myself with the horizon. I peek open my eyes and I don’t feel like I’m soaring thru freedom into a new life, I feel like my ears are frozen and with them, my brain. Cocky asshole taps me on the head to remind me to check the horizon. I don’t. He taps again to remind me to check my altimeter. I don’t. He taps yet another time to remind me to make sure I know where the handle is to pull the chute. I don’t check. All I can think of is how fast I’m flying thru the air, how amazing it is that I’m experiencing this, and not at all of what I’m supposed to remember and what it’s supposed to signify.
Finally, cocky asshole throws my arm in front of my face, where I notice on my wrist altimeter that it’s chute pulling time. I reach behind me for the handle and grab a little crotch instead…oops! Handle finally found, I give a good yank and the chute explodes open behind us. The ride down is peaceful and beautiful and amazing. I’m not stressing over my life and the new direction its taking. Instead, I’m watching the world and realizing that I do have this woman inside me that can handle anything.
Running in, I detach and rush Kelly with a hug and decide that I do in fact have incredible, amazing, awesome ideas. And while it wasn’t entirely what I thought it would be, skydiving certainly opened my eyes and was an incredible way to start a new life.

My final two pieces are very informal, very short blogs I wrote for my personal website. "Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life, or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives**." Throughout my life, I’ve surrounded myself with beautiful blank books. Often times written expressions of emotion hit me, organic and complete. Catching these in one of my books was satisfying and just for me. However, as I prepared to venture into independence, I had several friends and family members who wanted to be kept updated on how my kids and I were managing, and posting a blog seemed like an easy way to do this. Copying a small piece of myself from one of my books, I gave my reader’s a glimpse into my life. As Elie Wiesel (El-ie Ve-sel) commented in his book Memoirs, “To write is to plumb the unfathomable depths of being. Writing lies within the domain of mystery. The space between two words is vaster than the distance between heaven and earth. To bridge it you must close your eyes and leap. Ultimately, to write is an act of faith.” And my sharing these with you today is just that, an act of faith.

I'll love you forever, I wanna die when you die, my life meant nothing til you used my toothbrush
My dad is paying for me to have internet service, because as he put it, “god knows you have enough obstacles to deal with for school.” When I make a list I tend to agree with him. I’m a 14 credit hour student- which I packed into two days a week, I substitute teach three days a week, I’m a full time mom, I do volunteer work-it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t find time for at least a little, and now I’ve joined some clubs at school to pad my resume for grad school. So yeah, I’m a little busy. But it seems like, while being exhausted and not being able to keep up with homework, day to day life isn’t too terrible. That is until I read about or see someone that I know or knew who has it all…the perfect life, the perfect family, the American Dream. Then I look at my life and it saddens me. My marriage was disastrous; I’m not the mom I wanted to be; I fight for every penny…every chance…every stress free second. Sometimes I wonder how it is I can make it through the days when I don’t feel like fighting anymore…and all I have to do is look at my friends. I have been blessed more than anyone I know with the best support system, the best friends imaginable. Every one of them is loving and supportive and never tires of hand holding. So maybe I don’t have the perfect house and the perfect husband for my perfect kids…but I do have perfect friends, and I’ll take that any day.

Not all little girls want to be queen, even Barbie ended up being a stewardess.
I call myself a writer...but what have I written? A few blogs, a handful of short stories and some questionable poetry. I have three books in mind, three books I will someday write (someday being the operative word). I've been asked by many why I haven't written my books yet, or even really gotten started. I make excuses, “I'll start them when I'm done with school.” I lie, “I've written parts already,” though I doubt a couple dozen pages counts. I don't tell people the real reason I haven't started my books that are so clearly mapped out in my head...I'm scared. I'm scared that my so called writing talent isn't talent at all. I'm scared my books will be crap and the career I've always dreamed of will never even get a chance to start (then what will I be when I grow up??). I'm scared of failure. I take compliments that those who have read my writing offer with a grain of salt. If five people think I'm a good writer that hardly makes me successful. I scribble down ideas and throw them away or lose them. I doubt that I have any real skill as a wordsmith. But I know that someday, when I grow up, I WILL BE A WRITER.

*-http://www.ehow.com/how_2053402_write-creative-nonfiction.html
**- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog