The women holding up the whole world
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- April 21, 2024
- 1031
Do you ever feel as if you’ve just graduated from high school and have the world stretched out before you? In 1987 the immediate future held a road trip to Florida for me. Anything after that was up in the air. I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
I would never go back to that age (dear heavens), but I would go back to grasp that feeling and fully understand it. I’d hold it in my hot, little hands until it nearly melted from the width and breadth of my ideas. Maybe I would have went to college for journalism.
I have a close friend who does a really great podcast. It’s called “These Are Good Days,” and one of her bits is: “I’m 55 years old and … (insert whatever bit of wisdom is relevant that day).” And I feel that in my chest every single time the number is said out loud. What she means is we shouldn’t waste a day wondering what we’re doing — to take charge, to try that something new, to sit and do nothing just to gather ourselves for a minute.
I mentioned last week I’ve been struggling to find my purpose in our move to Canton. I’ve begun lists or rather combined old ones to glean just what it is I want to do. I’ll always write in some form and have promised myself I’ll finish the next book in the “TOÑO LIVES” series. Also my cookbook — I can’t count the amount of people who ask me about those two things.
My discipline is lacking.
Over drinks at a local cidery, a friend recalled a quote from a professor at Goshen that went something like: “There’s no shortcut for developing your own authentic voice.”
That hits home for me as I sit at this old, cherished table and tap out these words. I think what’s always kept me grounded is writing in my own voice. I’ve never, ever felt the need to use other writer’s styles or try my hand at incorporating AI. It’s never been a thought in my brain. I give people credit if I use a quote, but I have enough ideas that I don’t need anyone else’s, especially at 55.
What I need is a good hash session and a nudge to reinvent. I have a list called “To Manifest,” and here are the first several things I jotted down:
—Screenplay about a haunted woman/send to A24 (a film company).
—The Obituary Writer: a woman who writes obituaries and meets the people (ghosts?) she writes about.
—Connect a story between a boy/girl who sees aliens in their room at night to an abyss located in the old building next door. Use imagery.
I think there’s a theme, and I need someone to affirm this and kick my behind into action. My list is long and full, and instead of thinking about what I’m not doing, I just need to begin.
This weekend I’m meeting with my beloved Breakfast Club and will run these ideas by them. Together we’re so good at dreaming and putting things into action. We push each other to be better. We ask, “Why have you not begun?” Then we clink our glasses and laugh and laugh and laugh because the world is still ours.
Today after I finish writing, I’ll head to Massillon to pick up two stools I bought on FB Marketplace for our new island. After that, I’ll stop at a garage and get an estimate for a small car repair. Then I’ll come home and work in the garden a bit. There are some old, ugly, scraggly bushes that need chainsawed out of existence. Maybe I’ll stop and admire the surprise peony patch that popped up in my yard.
Tomorrow I’ll take over the world.
It’s still mine for the taking.
Melissa Herrera is a published author and opinion columnist. She is a curator of vintage mugs and all things spooky, and her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” can be found at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives. For inquiries, to purchase her book or anything else on your mind, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com or find her in the thrift aisles.