Sometimes bacon is just bacon

Before writing comes talking.

When I was 6 years old, my family vacationed at my Grandmother's house two states away.  One morning when I was still upstairs with my family, I said "I smell the bacon Grandma's makin'." My mother said "Michelle, you wrote a poem!" I remember that she smiled as she said it.

     I had said "I smell the bacon grandma's makin'" because we were at Grandma's house, and Grandma was making bacon, and I could smell it, and I was too lazy of speech to add the "g" to the end of the word "making."  I was not trying to be clever or cute or creative, and I was most certainly not trying write a poem.  I was trying to state the obvious. Children are good at stating the obvious, lacking the filter of political correctness of thought and speech, and therefore the things they say are often considered "really creative" to grown ups who have lost the ability to see what's right in front of their faces, and call it what it is.  

     In any case, I was six years old and my mother had just unknowingly labeled me "Michelle you  wrote a poem," and so just as I carried the title "Fast runner" across my chest which my father had named me,  (see previous post, and the one before that) From the age of six years old, I also have carried the name "Michelle you just wrote a poem" because of my mother.  

   ...though I had not actually written anything.  

Yet.

     But I would later write in my own handwriting on my own paper, with pens the color of my choosing. I would write what was inside my head and pour it out like brain ink.  I tried creatively.  There was a lot happening inside my head, and much of it (I realized) Did not look like the lives I saw my peers living out.  Confirmation of this was conversations I would have with them.  

Example: "No, I don't ever think to sit by myself and write poems.  Or stories.  Or anything.  That doesn't sound like fun to me."  -so said my nameless 10 year old girl friend.  

     My Best friend.

9 year olds who think deeply and carry a wound about which they ruminate are not always the norm.

     Carry on to Junior High.  

     I began to approach my teachers with piles of poetry and short stories I had written.  "If you have time, would you mind going over these and critiquing them for me?"  7th grade English teacher, 8th grade English teacher.  Then in High school, 9th grade English (Honors English, at this point) teacher.  He was the best critic because he was not kind. 

 "This is not a good poem.  This one is just...bad." 

 "You are mixing metaphors here, and it doesn't make sense.  'Roses' do not 'harden like rocks.' Choose one metaphor and stick with it, and make sure that it makes sense." 

 And so the words on papers I had written in the privacy of my notebook exposed were slashed through red from the markings of his pen.  

But sometimes at the bottom of a poem, just these words:

 "I like it." 

 Or even: "VERY good." 

Sometimes these words were even double or triple underlined to prove his point.  

 11th grade, 12th grade.  I learned to take the pointers seriously, and found that more often, less words, but positive ones, were what was written at the bottom of the page.

     I was determined to work at this.  

     It was a muscle that needed to be exercised and not let atrophy.  

(I have at times since gone through periods of doing either or both. 

(See first post on this particular blog, for example.)

     There is more to this story, but I do not feel the need to write it all now, here. 

( Learning to edit myself, space her out, "subtlety" often being a thing on which I need to work.  

(See makeup looks of mine from even last week, for example.)

(OK fine.  Yesterday.)

I got to thinking about it because of a conversation I heard two days ago.  Two word loving writer women (It turns out I was actually not the only deep thinking 9 year old, writing her thoughts creatively in the still of her lonely bedroom) discussing how to promote written work, even a blog, or a book.  How to get readers and such.  I am not motivated in that way.  I write because I need to write, and because it makes me happy, and because I feel like it's a bonding thing between me and the Lord; projects He helps me work on and finish.  And then I feel so happy when I have completed the work. 

If someone else stumbles upon it and can relate and realize something, then all the better.  I take that to mean that the LORD is using it beyond what I ever could.   I am careful about who I share it with.  I have been hurt by unnecessary harsh criticisms of those who had no idea what they were talking about.  This is a very different thing than constructive criticism by people who are wise and learned and know.  The difference is the difference between a pig carelessly traipsing mud across your heart and sitting on it, and a cow licking the dirt off, leaving it as shiny as it can possibly be, then walking away from it.

    Think about that,

     And do what you do,

    always offering it up as a sweet sacrifice to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.