Hey! So Glad You're Here.

My journey as a writer has been almost lifelong, though the most memorable first markers of it date back to high school, when I regularly got very good grades in English class. I remember writing a poem in 9th grade that turned the creation story on its head, with the penultimate verse climactically centered on man’s imagining God into being, on the sixth day, before resting on the seventh. For better or worse, I was untethered to any particular faith at that early point, but having toyed with the big questions of the universe a little bit, and left to my own devices on matters of what to believe, the possibility that we created our world and God instead of the other way around seemed interesting, so I wrote about it. 

When a very young Peter Platt*, my English teacher that year, called me up to his desk to ask whether I had actually written the poem, I was taken aback. At first I thought he was suggesting that I had plagiarized another’s work (I would never!), but quickly understood that his words were meant as high praise, and not as accusation. The poem, he explained (I’m paraphrasing from my memory of the moment), was unexpectedly—delightfully—sophisticated and subversive to have poured out so easily from the likes of me. Mr. Platt gave me an A, and, I, feeling the power of having written something shocking, took a small step forward into the chance that I might be onto something.

By the time I applied to college a couple years later, I had moved into enough of a semblance of self-understanding that I began my personal statement essay with the declaration that I was two things for sure: a runner and a writer. And so, either because these things I believed about myself were true or by way of self-fulfilling prophecy, I ran and wrote my way into and through college, law school, a short-lived stint as a corporate lawyer (the driest of writing seasons, featuring pages of desperate and despondent journaling), a (likely undeserved) spot as a fact-checker-then-reporter at The American Lawyer Magazine, the many moods and moons of married life and stay-at-home motherhood (enter Facebook) and now, today, this blog: Write In Place.

I think and write a lot about place, and perspective; the truth of the matter is that wherever we go, there we are. So much of language is about where we are located—physically, emotionally, intellectually, geographically—and how this impacts the things we see and how we see them. When one of my kids gets bogged down by a social slight or an unfair grade, for example, my go-to bit of advice is to “pan out,” because standing back from a hard thing and then squinting at it from afar often helps us see how un/important a problem is within the larger context. Every day we use words like focus, periphery and hindsight to describe our behavior and experience. I often talk about seeing things I’ve left behind, or that I’d maybe like to leave behind, in my rearview mirror. 

I offer Write In Place to you from a little white desk in a small attic nook carved out for this special purpose, but also from wherever I roam—driving around, hiking the trail, running the road, getting gas, buying groceries, weeding the garden. No matter where I am, I am in the right place, fixed, unmovable, at the center of my own web-shaped story, which is all I can ever hope to fully know. I’ve been writing this blog for years--on Facebook, some, and in my head, mostly--but today I’m putting it all here so that we can share in it and move forward together. I promise nothing other than an opportunity to catch up on some of the writing I've already done and to join me on my writing journey from here on out.

Welcome in--I’m so happy for the company! Please feel free to: stay as long as you like, poke around, make comments/ask questions, and come and go as you please. ​

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*For the record, and in case he ever reads this, I want to say on the record that Mr. Platt was the sort of teacher who, without trying too hard or overthinking it, propelled me forward in my relationship with language and learning just by loving these pursuits as much as I did; looking back, he seemed to consider his time with his students to be a shared experience worth savoring: a privilege that benefitted us all mutually, if not equally. I will always be grateful that my journey intersected with his.