Blessed
Just yesterday I remembered a rainy day in New York City. It was a few years ago now…
It was raining, I had gotten into a fender bender, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a ticket for parking in that spot… But I was running through the streets of New York trying to get my scripts to a drama organization housed in an old church.
It’s amazing what I’ve seen on the streets of New York in the rain. I even found myself dancing in it once… when the rain came down in sheets — continuous and sublime, I could have swam home if I had wanted to.
But that day, when all I had on my mind was making it before the deadline, an old black man (we’ll call him Henry) stopped me in the middle of my rushing — stopped me dead in my tracks when he said, “You’re a writer!”
It was more of a statement than a question, and I’m not sure how Henry knew.
“Yeah,” I said.
“God bless you,” he laughed.
I smiled, and said “Thanks.”
I quickly scuttled off to drop off my manuscripts at the converted church.
Months later, I found out I didn’t get into the program I’d done everything I could that day to get my scripts to.
And you know what? I’m still a writer.
And it’s not a paycheck that defines who I am. The time on the clock doesn’t define it. I don’t have a title from HR or a “boss”.
The government doesn’t classify me as one. And even my degrees, A BA in English, a BS in Education, and an MA in Writing and Publishing don’t make me one.
I’m a writer because I keep doing it. No matter how many times I hear “no”, or how many times I pick myself up off the floor after hearing it…
It’s been eight years that I’ve been at this, and I’m the closest I’ve ever been to a “yes.” But even that won’t change things.
As hard as it’s been to sometimes remind myself that I’m writer, I always remember that I’m blessed to know who and what I am — without having to hear it from anyone else but me (and nice folks like Henry).
–Sue
Add comment March 4th, 2009
