by Nancy Stohlman
I asked Gay Degani if I could
have the final slot in Journey to Planet Write series for two reasons—one,
because I want to properly thank her on behalf of everyone who has appeared in
and enjoyed this series. Gay has done an incredible service to our community and
created a space where we can all shine. We are grateful to you, Gay!
But there is a second reason.
Exactly one year ago I was scheduled to appear in this column when a drunk
driver going 90 mph crossed the median on the highway and made other plans for
me.
Instead of my Journey to
Planet Write, you got my “Interrupted
Journey,” a beautiful tribute that Gay and others put together. It meant a
lot to me to feel so loved during that process of shock and recovery and now,
one year later, it seemed important to not only bring it all full circle and
give you that column that never was, but also to end this Planet Write journey
on a note of celebration, healing, and hope.
I was 9 years old, living on
a military base in Zaragoza, Spain, when I told my mom I wanted to be an author.
I wrote my first creation, “Superman: The Musical”, on my mother’s electric
typewriter, loving the clack of the keys and the feeling that I was doing something important. Though I attempted
to cast it from my class of fellow fifth graders and rehearse in the carport,
the musical (including numbers like Lex Luthor’s “I’ll Rule the World”) never
made it to the stage, but my confidence in myself as a creative was born.
That same year I discovered
the library, and on Saturdays I would volunteer at the check-out desk, stamping
people’s due dates. Being a military family we moved a lot, so books became my friends.
Nancy Drew was always waiting for me in every library from Spain to Germany to
Omaha. Books were a constant in a world that was constantly changing.
Later, when life got harder,
books became a way to disassociate; I could leave my body in the midst of
everyday reality, escape family meltdowns and divorces and worlds I didn’t want
to be in. In college, I read in the dressing rooms of go-go clubs, getting
through East of Eden and The Trial while other girls were giving lap
dances.
After I dropped out of
college, I started traveling the country with the Renaissance Fair, living in a
van, putting on a bodice and an English accent to sell turkey legs and pewter
goblets. I discovered lyrical songwriters like Bob Dylan and Tom Waits and I
started journaling regularly with the idea that these were adventures I would
want to remember and maybe someday write a book. Sadly most of those journals
are gone. But when I eventually got off the road and moved to Denver to finish
college, I did so as a writer.
Photo by Lynn Hough |
This story is true. But it’s
not the whole story.
While 9-year-old Writer Nancy
was stamping books at the library, 9-year-old Performer Nancy was learning the
guitar and soloing in the church folk band. At 12 I was competing in pageants,
at 15 I enrolled in the Nancy Bounds Modeling Agency, and at 18 I was runner-up
for Miss Nebraska. I began college as a theater major, in love with the
vulnerability of the stage, that instant gratification of connecting with an
audience in the moment.
This story is also true. So
how do these two Nancys, these twin passions, connect?
They connect in my art.
In acting school there is a
thing called a triple threat: a person who can sing, dance, and act. Much of my
own creative process has been finding the intersection of myself as a writer,
performer and innovator. The sweet spot where my creative exhibitionist meets
my inner world of silence and flow. My writing reflects this intersection and
love of innovation—The Monster Opera is
an avant garde mixture of performance and writing, a place where the novel
metaphorically battles the opera on page and stage. Searching for Suzi: a flash novel was the first flash novel (called
as such) and a term I coined in 2009. And perhaps that’s why in 2007 I fell in
love and began writing flash fiction: there is an instant gratification akin to
the stage that comes from these short, self-contained bursts of story. Here’s a
link to a reading of The Fox.
As word-crafters we lay it
bare on the page. As performers we reveal ourselves on the stage. They are
flipsides of the same coin, the inner and the outer worlds of creation: the
private incubation and the public genuflection.
In the end I see no reason
why writers can’t also be rock stars. One of these days I will stage dive after
a reading.
And that’s probably how this
essay would have ended if you had read it last year. But on May 20 of last
year, everything changed.
Naked
The scissors slide easily through the thick denim of my favorite
blue jeans, from ankle to waist, ankle to waist, as one leg then the other
falls away. He slices up the middle of my thin cotton shirt like tissue paper,
unwraps me, my pink Victoria’s Secret bra a final ribbon snipped and spilling
to the ground, leaving me naked. Exposed.
Are you having trouble breathing? He asks with kind brown eyes.
A little, on one side, I whisper.
We’ll be there soon, he says, gently placing an oxygen mask as the
ambulance sirens rattle the warm evening air.
People ask me about my
accident a lot. It’s so hard to respond, so mostly I avoid the conversation.
But I will tell you here that something happened to me in those moments as they
were ripping the car open with the Jaws of Life. Somewhere between the
ambulance and the emergency room I had the most important realization of my
life: I’m still here.
By the time they were inflating
my lung I knew I’d been given a gift—as they were pulling chunks of glass out
of my arm I had a choice: become a victim or become a bigger version of myself.
Could I learn to be grateful in the midst of such an injustice?
Yes. I had to. I had no other
choice.
So this story and my Journey
to Planet Write have Happy Endings. I’m here to write another day. But aren’t
we all? We’ve all been given this same gift of today. No matter how
disappointing or unpredictable or infuriating the world may be, no matter how
tragic or even euphoric our lives become, we are here one more day, to write.
Our books, our words, our ideas are the friends that accompany us on the
journey. And spaces like Journey to Planet Write remind us that we are not
alone.
Nancy Stohlman’s books
include The Vixen Scream and Other
Bible Stories(2014), The Monster
Opera (2013), Searching for Suzi:
a flash novel (2009), Live From Palestine
(2003), and three anthologies of flash fiction including Fast Forward: The Mix Tape (2010), a finalist for a 2011 Colorado
Book Award. She is the creator and curator of The F-Bomb Flash Fiction ReadingSeries in Denver, a founding member of Fast Forward Press, and her
work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Photo by Lynn Hough |
This is the last episode in the series of Journeys that began in January of 2016. Other Journeys may appear sporadically in the future. If you are a writer and want to share your Journey, please submit to gaydegani@gmail.com.
3 comments:
Perfect person and story to end with. Love ya Nancy!!
Thanks for sharing. Go Nan!
Your creative spirit bursts forth from every pore, my friend. I firmly believe that you glow in the dark. Love you oodles & bunches. Outstanding way to end the series, Gay. Mic drop. :)
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