Thirty one days of writing.. Day one

I’m embarking on a journey… Something to spark my creative mind, forced at the hand of someone other than me.  I joined a writing group so to speak…  It’s an online challenge.

Read it or not, this isn’t for you, it’s for me…. I need this.  I feel… “flat” inside….  I don’t like feeling flat.

All my life, I was full of HIGHS and LOWS….to the EXTREME!  It’s taken me years to control it (to the best of my ability as I refuse to be completely tamed), but I’m thankful I can get myself in check for the most part.  I still throw F-Bombs…as much as I have tried to alter that facet of my life, it’s here to stay… ask the Booster meeting attendants… (I don’t state that with pride, just as a fact).

I don’t want to change who I am, I just need to peel back a few more layers of the onion of my life.  So…to that end, I have embarked on a new little venture for the next 31 days.  I’m not looking ahead, so as I write, the topic will be “sprung” on me, and I will shoot from the hip…. So for better or worse, here is day one…and the topic is, “What was your favorite book as a child?… Was it read to you or did you read it?  Did you mock the voices…etc…..”

And here is my answer….

The first book that sprung to mind was a Judy Blume book called “Deenie”.   I was probably in 5th grade, because before that, I never really read.  The idea of “reading for pleasure” was completely foreign to me….until I met someone who loved to read…

She was a recent transplant from New Jersey.  Her name…Elle Stemmler….  She was as cute as could be.  And as I had exhausted most friendships in elementary school, with only one year left to go… I found myself intrigued with Elle.  I don’t remember exactly how we met.  I just remember that as soon as I met her, I liked her and I wanted to be her friend.  She was funny and smart (way smarter than me) …. and she read for pleasure..  I was completely perplexed by this… I always thought reading was a “Have to” not a “Want to”.

Be that as it may, Elle introduced me to Judy Blume. I’m not sure why I chose Deenie and I’m not even sure that was the first book I read, but I remember the content was.. weird…

Deenie had scoliosis… She had to wear a body brace and her troubles were something I would (thankfully) never had to face.  So it was interesting to me to read about this person and her circumstances and the likes of which I could never understand….until I did….

Judy Blume wrote as if she was writing to ME!  I read her books with ease and I was captivated by the content.  After that I read, “Are you there God, it’s Me, Margaret” and anything else she wrote… I once wanted my name to be “Catherine Freedman” because it was one of her characters names and I thought it sounded AH-MAZING!!!  (My maiden name was MUCH more complicated to say and everyone got it wrong so FREEDMAN, to me just ROLLED off the tongue!)

After reading a good few Judy Blume books…the book of all books to achieve… was one of her adult novels (which of course, every kid knew about)… WIFEY!  OH EM GEE…..  That had ….. *ahem* sexual content (whispered as quietly as I could in writing)….

I was raised a strict Catholic girl… so this book was total TABOO!!!…

andIdidn’treadit

For whatever reason, I couldn’t make myself go there…. But as an adult, I wonder about that book and now with all my …. uhhh… wisdom…. I wonder how bad it really is….  But I’m too tired to read anymore! LOL

That said, when I look back on my fifth grade year and my “reading for pleasure”… I owe it all to Elle Stemmler…

I wish she knew this was true and I would be so happy to tell her… only she died in a car accident just three months after we graduated high school…

She will never know the impact she had on me or how fondly I remember her.

But I am so thankful that she changed the course of my life… just by her passion for reading.  Her parents still live in the same house and I have sent them cards over the years.  I want them to know that their child will never be forgotten.  My kids know who she is and we have visited her grave together…

And I’m thankful they know her too….

So there you have it…  my first writing assignment in 31 completed.  You ask me about my favorite book….and now you have the story….

~Dedicated to the memory of Elle Stemmler