Writing Prompt:: Places I have lived

I blame my parents for my gypsy-like yearnings.

I was born in Kansas and within to two weeks my family moved. I have since moved 26 times. I have literally lived from coast to coast. Mostly in some seriously podunk towns.

I say I blame my parents but truly, I am grateful. I have had some wonderful opportunities because of this. The place I lived the longest of Pocatello, ID. Eights years total, moving back and forth for various reasons. You may wonder why I moved so much and I will get to that I promise. But I want to tell you about Pocatello first.

My father was attending Idaho State University for Engineering. He went to school and worked. My mother had a small country store. My younger brother and I attended a Private School for the arts. This town gave me some of the best memories of my life. Especially my school, Cre-Act, which was a block from our small 3 bedroom home on Johnson. My brother and I walked to and from school every day from my 1st grade to 5th grade years. The focus of the school was not on education but on nurturing our individual artistic talents. There were speech and art festivals, dance classes and a play every year. I found my love for speech and the stage, which has helped me become to confident woman I am today. The annual spring plays were some of my best memories. My mom always helped design the costumes and she and my father were there for every single performance. I remember waiting in the wings at the college auditorium so excited to recite my lines to the audience. For the years I was there we did the Jungle Book, Tom Sawyer, Swiss Family Robinson and a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. My favorite was the Swiss Family Robinson. I had a big part with plenty of lines. I thought I was a star!!

I always dreaded the end of school. My summers were pretty boring and my brother and I were by ourselves a lot while my parents were working. Sometimes we would take the bus to my mom's store to see her, often with flowers we had handpicked from our neighbors garden. (oops!) That actually didn't last very long. Our safe little town became not so safe when a friend of mine, that lived around the corner from me, was kidnapped, murdered and dismembered, her body parts put in styrofoam containers and sent down the snake river. Jeralee, may you rest...

After Pocatello, we moved to Iowa. From West Branch to Cosgrove to Fort Dodge. I still attended private Christian schools, which I loved because I made some amazing friends. I took dance lessons and performed in plays. I was student council president and organized talent shows and fundraisers, all with the unwavering support of my parents. The school I attended in Fort Dodge was a whole new world for me. I was so nervous for my first day of high school, but again I made some incredible friends.

In the middle of sophomore year we moved from Fort Dodge, IA to Syracuse, NY. Moving in the middle of the school year was a nightmare. I hated it. At the end of the semester I tranferred to another school to finish my high school years. Another Christian School that was very strict. We did not even have homecoming or prom, just banquets. Dancing was "of the Devil". Dude, they danced in the Bible. Are you serious? Oh well. If they had been aware of my after school activities I would have been prayed over and probably expelled. Not to mention my parents would have kicked my ass. Some of my favorite memories were skipping school and going to the club with my Soul Sista, Sarah. I love that girl. She made FHS tolerable.

After I finished high school, I moved a lot on my own. Keene, NH. Woodbrige, VA. Mannassas Park, VA. Fairfax, VA. Pasadena, MD. And now I am in Woodward, OK. I will go into the details as to how the hell I wound up in the middle of nowhere at another time.

I promised I would explain why I have moved so much. No, my father was not in the military. After he graduated, he got a job as a project manager and we moved when projects were finished. Because of this I have been so fortunate to see much of our amazing country. Places not mentioned: California, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas

And now I have a serious case of wanderlust. I want to experience the world. I love to travel and do so at every opportunity.


And you see the crazy gypsy in my soul
It always comes as a surprise
When I feel my withered roots begin to grow
Well I never had a place that I could call my very own
That's all right, my love, 'cause you're my home
~Billy Joel

Scribbling Therapy

Ever since I could first write, first string words together to form a sentence, I started telling stories. They were stories about my day, stories about nothing, stories about my friends. Writing has always been my outlet and my therapy. When I was ten I received my first journal as a gift. I almost didn't want to write a single letter on those creamy white pages for fear of ruining them. I finally put pen to paper and thus began my affair of words.

Writing, not typing has always been my method of choice. Why you may ask? Sure, typing may be much much more time efficient but emotions come out much better through an individuals penmanship. The slants of the letters, the spacing, the use (or over use) of punctuation. There's much more than just words.

At some point my journaling transitioned into much more. I began scrap booking almost, adding snapshots and stickers, movie and concert tickets. I even put the label from the first beer I ever drank on one of the pages. (Boy was that a memorable night!!) They were pages and pages of my favorite memories and secrets in different colored gel pens. I probably had about 20 of them at least, not to mention countless loose pages of random rants and thoughts.

During my junior and senior years of high school, I started really developing my writing style and dedicating as much time as possible to discovering what type of writer I wanted to be. I explored poetry, wrote short stories, outlined book ideas. It was around this time that I started my first online journal. I wrote almost daily about nothing and everything. A young woman trying to find her place in the world. This journal actually wound up getting me in trouble at school. It was private, except for friends. One of my so called friends wound up printing off the pages of my online journal and taking them to my principal. I was quickly called into a meeting with him and the school counselor. What did I say? I used foul language. Oh freaking well right? The principal told me I was ripe for the work of Satan. (I went to a small Christian school) Wow. I was lucky to get out of there without being prayed over or exorcised. They didn't even call my parents. But after that I was constantly getting in trouble for such stupid things. Except skipping school. Somehow they let that slide. Maybe they were glad one of Satan's Spawn was out of their hallways. I still laugh at it to this day.

As much as I despised that school, it was very important in forming the writer I am today. English was my favorite class. My teacher my junior year always had wonderful prompts and exercises and let us students express ourselves however we wanted. I know I was not her favorite student (to this day I do not know what she had against me) but she always graded me objectively, which I am very thankful for. It was very inspiring.

My teacher senior year was absolutely wonderful. She let me do whatever I was inspired to do and gave me nothing but genuine encouragement and constructive criticism. She even turned her head when I skipped class. She always knew I would have the assignments in on time and put forth my best effort. I walked away my senior year with a perfect A in that class. Honestly, that was the only grade that mattered to me. Writing is what I have the most passion for.

I always write from the heart. I put myself out there in every way possible. I let myself be vulnerable and raw in ways I do not do normally.

Actually, I can't say "always". For awhile there I really lost touch. It was not writer's block. I do not know what to call it. I had so many emotions trying to burst out at the same time that I could not come up with one thought. It was a messed up string of consciousness and I just gave up, pushed my thoughts away and got caught up in the humdrum of "wake up, go to work, come home, go to sleep, rinse and repeat".

And I suffered for it.

For the last year I have been trying to get back to where I was. Get my thoughts and life together and regain my purpose as a writer.

This is my attempt at that, getting my thoughts out there. Even if it is a stream of consciousness.

Unfortunately, about five years ago, I destroyed all of my journals. I cannot remember why, nor do I remember what was going on in my life at that time. This is something I wish I had not done. I would love to have a written record of my flowery thoughts as a teen. A memory of when life was so simple and worry free. Thankfully though, I still have those random scraps of paper, napkins, receipts etc that I wrote random thoughts on as well as my writing assignments. I am sure I will post these here and there for the sake of being nostalgic.

For now my restless mind must retire.