October challenge: write every day

I'm not sure if October is national write every day month, but I've seen a lot of the people and pages I follow on Facebook mention that daily writing is their goal for this month. Considering that November is National Novel Writing Month it makes perfect sense to prepare and cultivate the writing habit in now in October. So I throw my hat in with the rest of you. I am going to write every day in October. Maybe just a paragraph or a page. Maybe I'll hit on something ingenious and crank out a whole story. My hope is that I create some spring board ideas from which to launch the novel I commit to write in November. Note: it will be a shitty novel, but that's ok. The first ones usually are.

I'll post everthing here because 1.) it will keep me accountable and 2.) it just seems easier this way. Editing will go by the wayside for this month. Each misspelled word and forgotten comma will haunt my inner grammarian, but for now I'll resist the proof reading urge for the sake of getting words on the screen. You've been warned. Try not to judge me based on those errors.

I've no plan as for what to write. One day may be a reflective essay followed the next day by a poem and the next day by rant. I try to avoid the use of profanity in my writing. I feel like it's a cop-out for more creative and unique description. But sometimes the only appropriate word that works is a big, fat "fuck" (or "shitty" in the case of describing a really awful first novel writing attempt in November). I won't censor myself here. So again, you've been warned.

Now that we've covered all that, here is today's work....

I'm not good with death. The death of someone I know. I fumble around feelings and trip over words. I cry a little, but I don't think I cry enough. Or sometimes I think I cry too much. Death is one of the few things in life on which we can rely. Sooner or later, painfully or peacefully, quickly or drawn out, we will all die. It's a fact that has never sat well on my heart. Even the belief that after death we will go to heaven doesn't soothe its sting.

Mrs. Mary Lou Robbins and Mrs. Esther Mallard both died this summer. Their lives were long and rich, but my world dimmed with their passing. I didn't cry when I heard the news of their individual deaths. People were around, and I felt awkward. Awkward because I hadn't seen Mrs. Esther for a few years and Mrs. Mary Lou for a few months, and though they were dear ladies it wasn't like I was best friends with either of them. Truth is I was just too worried people, family would think I was weird for breaking down over the deaths of two women I only saw on the occassional Thursday lunch gathering.

For several years now, a group of silver haired, firecracker women meet for lunch every Thursday. They call themselves the OMDs which stands for "oscillate my derriere" which simplified means "kiss my ass". I attended my first OMD lunch over five yeras ago at the invitation of my grandmother, one of the group's founders. I saw it as a good opportunity to spend time with her so I agreed to go even though the thought of being at lunch with a group of people I didn't know flamed my social anxiety. I left that meal spellbound and in love with the laughter, the gossip, and the perfectly laquered lips that were repainted after eating. I returned almost every Thursday until I got married and moved to North Georgia. As the lunches and weeks passed these women transitioned from being friends of my grandmother's to dear friends of my own, and I transitioned from Alice's granddaughter to bonafide OMD member.

I want to continue to tell you about these ladies. I want to tell you about Mrs. Mary Lou and how she would lean in to tell you something and then pull back with eyebrows lifted. I want to tell you about Mrs. Esther and how she came to believe I was writing a book about my grandfather, for whom she worked back in the day, and how even though she was in the advanced stages of alzheimer's she still asked about me and how the book was coming along. I want to tell you these things and more, but the words are tangled in my head, much like the feelings that wouldn't let me cry when they died.

But I'm crying now. Crying because I loved them and miss them. Crying because I can't get sentences on the page that will do them justice....and for now this is all I have. Maybe tomorrow will be better.