Love Always. It’s 1988, the year you graduate high school, the summer your best friend (of all time) turns 16, the months when you’re supposed to ride the Texas highways together to the mall, the movies, the parking lot parties, the two of you in your little white hatchback with the windows down and George Michael pouring from the radio. The car filled with the excitement and ambitions of teenagers on the cusp of life. Instead, you drive her to the airport and say a tearful goodbye at the gate as she and her family board a plane headed to South Korea for a year.
It’s 1988, when email is 
nonexistent, cell phones are for the fancy, and long distance phone calls cost dollars a minute. Air mail is your only option. You drive from the airport to work, sit down at your desk, and immediately start scribbling on the tissue-thin paper. You write almost every day, keep the postman busy in the exchange of envelopes thick with angst, news of changing bodies, nerves as you set off for college, and mothers.
Sure your mom is going to cry, you’re the last one to leave, it’s going to be just her and your dad. She’s just being a mom. Don’t let it get you down. Speaking of mothers, mine is driving me up the wall.
Reminders that distance means nothing where sisters of the heart are concerned.
It was so weird getting your letter about you being sick because right now I can’t breathe out of my right nostril; we’re even sick together.
Those letters saved me that summer.
And letters, along with diaries or anything of written record between family or close friends, are the inspiration for the upcoming Anthology co-edited by Lisa Rivero (Hidden Timber Books) and myself.
Family Narratives: bringing diaries and letters alive will be a “collection of creative nonfiction, found poetry and other poetry, and essays” that “showcases the telling of historical family narratives for present and future generations, both for our own families and for other readers.” AND, we’ve extended the deadline for submissions to September 1st!
We know you have a story, and we don’t want to miss the chance to read it. Check out the full guidelines HERE. Then, dig up those old journals and photos. Study that intricately decorated family tree hanging in your house, the one with a branch on the side labeled simply “baby.” Share your story.
That makes the writing worthwhile.
But, some of that nervousness slipped away as the room filled up with an audience. And again when I saw one writer’s face light up the moment his daughter and her family arrived.
Facilitating a writing class, working with others–especially this group at Harwood Place–is a constant exercise in discovery for me and the members of the group. We uncover the talent within each of us and pave the way to bring a memory or experience back to life. Later at an event like this, we reveal to ourselves and those around us the power in listening, in writing, and in sharing.