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This is a repost from my lost first attempt at blogging…someone found it out of nowhere and re-brought it to my attention. Funny how the world works…

Writing

I have always believed that I was going to be a writer. Is this, as my mother and grandmother think, because it runs in my blood? My great-grandfather was a fantastic poet, my grandmother was unpracticed talent; my mother and her two brothers are witty and eloquent, but no one was “a writer”, all were/ are just well-written. My grandmother has always enjoyed the idea that I would take this raw family talent gene somewhere. Somewhere further than the rest of them had gone with it. It’s like the elite, privileged version of the first one in the family to go to college. We all are well-educated: my grandmother got a scholarship to Duke University at a time when women only made up 30 per cent or so of college attendees. My mother went to a progressive liberal arts college, which was so radical it closed down, but she is…

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A is for the Alligator that I saw this morning in front of our vacation abode.

April Fools!

For real, there is apparently an alligator living in the little pond across the way from this wonderful townhouse in coastal South Carolina, and while the kids and I have kept a keen lookout on this combined family vacation, there has been no sight of him/her yet.

I am notorious (in my own mind) for having little discipline for writing regularly, and that is one of my major goals for this blogging enterprise – to have a writing practice. So I have joined this community of writers taking on this challenge of every day posts, going through the alphabet one day at a time, excepting Sundays, and simply putting “pen to paper” with a broad ABC prompt.

I intend to keep these posts short and hone my chops at making a succinct point , but I’m already not doing very well at this aim – cut me some slack, it’s only the first day!

A: American Dream

I am so fortunate to be on the coast of South Carolina for a few days away with some dear friends and our kids. I thought this would be an opportune time to use the relaxed timber of the day to think alphabetically – to get me off on the right foot.

Last night, the adults in the house stayed up way too late talking, and along the way, I agreed to be the typing fingers and editorial consultant for my friend’s memoir. Gus is from Uruguay and while I feel I know him quite well (our kids refer to each other as cousins), I am always mind-blown when the glasses are refilled and the stories are flowing. He has had a journey to his “American Dream” that is as heartbreaking as it is uplifting.

I am excited to help him tell the tale of how he changed his story. I do not know yet how much of that will end up on this blog, but I think the telling and writing will do us both some good.