Regarding bucket lists

Tonight, I came to believe that seeing someone else accomplish something on their bucket list is almost equal to accomplishing something on your own bucket list. It's kind of amazing. I went to a book reading of a woman that I know who just published her first novel. I don't know this woman well. She volunteers at the place that I work and I happened to have done a tiny little intro on her at our volunteer dinner last Fall. I was nervous about it and, frankly, didn't really know who she was the day that I was to introduce her. I was new to the job, she was new to the place and that's sort of why we were paired up as introducer and introducee (is that a word?). Anyway, I've seen her a handful of times since then and have never really had a long conversation with her, but she struck me as very awesome for some reason. Just...cool, you know? Some people are just cool. There is no hiding it.

She wrote a novel. Well, I think she's written several, actually, but she just had her first novel published. It's damn good. All reviews so far have been raving. It's called "The Absent Woman" by Marlene Lee. And tonight was the first book reading for it at a coffee house downtown. I think this is a bucket list thing for her. She's 74 years old (I don't think she'd mind me blogging that as she asked that the fellow who did her introduction tonight to specifically mention it before she did her reading) and she finally got a novel published. Not self-published, but truly published by a publishing house out of the UK. I even bought the book in a real bookstore. You can buy it on Amazon, but I wanted to go to a local book store, see the book on the shelf and buy it. Not only to support the local book shop, but also the author that I (hardly) know. The book reading tonight was to maybe a dozen people and she mentioned that she thought there would be a larger turn-out. But the look on her face was of such pride and such appreciation for her chance to read bits of this novel. You could tell this was the culmination of so much work, time, rejections letters from the 'wrong' publishers, and perseverance that one day the 'right' publisher would arrive in her life and recognize that what she was writing was good. I was amazed by her tonight. I talked to her for a little while before the reading and she said it took her over two years to write the novel. She wrote it in the late 1980s while she was living near Seattle (the book is set near Seattle) and I think there are a lot of similarities between some of the characters in her story and those in her life. It's so well-written (and, according to Marlene, very well edited). I began reading it almost immediately after purchasing it and have found it to be such a good read. Fantastic. Tonight she read one part in particular that I wanted to share because I wanted to burst out clapping at these few lines that struck such a chord with me:

"Why do some people move and some people stay where they are? Why do some people have gnawings and others don't? Every person on the face of the earth should have a biographer. Someone who explains. How unfair that we should appear and disappear so quickly, without a trace. Better records should be kept on all of us." - The Absent Woman by Marlene Lee

I have forever felt that way! Not only have I always felt like this, but I've managed to use that philosophy in my everyday life by working where I do. The majority of our collection comes from everyday, ordinary people who refused to disappear without a trace of their existence. I love people like that. It's important to leave something behind, no matter how inconsequential someone may think it is. It's important to somehow show the world, or even just a white empty space on a web-blogging site, that 'I was here.' Marlene has an outstanding style of writing. The story of the Absent Woman is great. She's got a clear-cut style that makes you "see" the story in your mind, but she doesn't bash you over the head with flowery writing. It's very to-the-point. I like that a lot. But, at the same time, there's a real genuine quality to her writing. It's just really fantastic. I'm sure I'm biased, but mostly I'm just so impressed by what I saw tonight that I can hardly stop going 'EEEEEEEE!!!!' in my head. As if I didn't think this person was cool before, now she's like, freaking awesome. She helps teach creative writing at Mizzou and I am sort of jealous of the students that get to learn from her now.

She asked me if I was a writer and I said no, that all I really did was 'blog'. I told her I didn't think I had the attention span to stick with something long enough to create a novel. She told me that writing isn't something that you 'stick with', it's just something that you have to do. It's a compulsive behavior, in a lot of ways. If you feel lost without writing something...anything...you are a writer. She's inspiring because of what she's accomplished and it certainly fills me happiness to know that tonight I watched someone's dream come true right before my eyes. It's a powerful thing. Plus, I suddenly realized how many other writers there are around me. I met a mystery writer and a science fiction writer tonight. All published. I work with writers on a fairly regular basis in my job. I help them in their research so that they can see what St. Louis was like in 1913, or so they can understand what segregation in Lexington, Missouri, looked like, or to help someone get an idea of who Laura Ingalls Wilder was so that the writer can turn her into a detective in a historical mystery series. I might not have the needed commitment or attention span to write a novel right now, but who's to say that someday I wouldn't? Simply seeing that others have it and are able to create some amazing and creative things from that commitment is certainly encouraging. Maybe they were like me at some point. They probably were; in general, I feel that people are very much alike. Much more than we are unalike. At some point, maybe I'll grow up and actually be able to stick with something longer than a week. (Remember that blog from last week about my fascination with opera? That lasted about 15 minutes into the first act of "Carmen" before that ended rather abruptly. I've since not had the desire to watch any opera or listen to any music from operas. Although, I feel like I would be happy with reading an opera...but that seems against the grain of the entire opera genre. Bizet and Mozart didn't write this stuff to be read, but I digress...) 

Right now, I just don't have the focus to stick with one thing for very long. Even this blog post is rambling on to new things. I don't have the desire to commit to much of anything, but instead sort of flit flit flit from one thing to the next. I think the longest I've ever been able to stick with anything has been blogging. I've quit blogs and gone on a hiatus, but I always return or start anew someplace else. I'm not a writer like Marlene is and I don't have the ability to put into words the story of a single character's journey...but tonight I saw what commitment, perseverance, and a belief in your own ability as a writer can get you, and it was pretty awesome to witness. Congrats to Marlene!