What Would Ann Do?

I am a bartender, a hairdresser, a priest.

I have all the stories, but they’re sealed, and although so very much my own, I can’t tell them. Not yet, anyway.

The stories I have I need to write, they are too much too keep inside and need to be processed. Writing non-fiction feels better these days then fiction. My grandfather, before he died, used to tell me I had to write because I had so many stories to tell. I thought he meant made- up ones, now I’m not so sure.

But my stories aren’t just mine and many are hard and sad and personal. They belong to my sons and my family with me right in the middle. This is just thinking out loud after a long week and it’s only Tuesday and I’m not even thinking of world news and insanity that is the president. I am thinking of so many stories about my mother and the reasons she never shows up in my writing. I don’t know how to do it, write them down and put them away for now I suppose.

Maybe Ann Patchett would loan me her title, ‘This is The Story of a Happy Marriage’ if my stories were ever collected. Heck, I even have one about her I’m not sure how to share and it’s so, so good! I can’t find the quote, but she once wrote that she writes because she can’t carry the heavy stories around and writing (non-fiction) is her way of figuring them out to make things lighter.

Lightening may be a good first step.

*Pink Fish Pick! A book that goes so well with my thoughts and this post would be the book I’m reading now, “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson. It reminds me of so many of my favourites; Elizabeth Strout, Kent Haruf. Perfect for fall and I’ve been meaning to read this series for years. And yes, Ann P may have posted a video lately reminding me of them.