The Woman That Couldn't Forget...Ever.

With the bandages off my face and the stitches dissolving, I had no more obvious pain or ailment. Along with the healing came the now-familiar notion that I was doing nothing, wasting time.

When my husband would approach me in the writer's corner of my daughter's room, I felt guilty for just 'sitting there'. He wasn't saying anything, but I self-condemned. The unspoken sentence was that I needed to get off my duff and get back to work.

During my absence from cleaning, property managing and all things manual-labor, I found that to have my mind stimulated was huge for me. The intellectual part that had awakened wasn't about to take a snooze anytime soon. Seeking a way to honor that,I signed up for some courses at the local community college. The last time I'd attended school had been two decades earlier, and I'd stopped taking classes as a young married expectant mother. I'd been too pregnant and morning-sickness riddled to want to keep getting up early for a course. Once my son was born, I had no desire to leave him or the home, and luckily my first husband financially and morally supported me in that decision. My education was put on hold and basically forgotten about, with an occasional 'I want my degree someday' uttered from time to time, a bucket list item.

Seeing being a student as a way to accomplish validity, I enrolled in school, going back to college after over twenty years. I registered, bought the books, waited a week for class to begin and in the meantime frequently thought, "What did you just do?"

Back to having school days, I was in school while my children were not. I could have planned that better, but I was anxious to have a goal that didn't involve all-purpose cleaner.

I remembered myself as an average, if not below-average student, due to my short attention span (and distracting things going on at home when I was a child). I expected to make the usual mediocre marks.

On the first day, the classroom was full and our Psychology professor was late. I wasn't sure what to expect. I only knew that this woman had a PhD behind her name. It both intimidated me and made me envious, thinking of those that had both the time and opportunity for such an education.

Another student walked in, very tall, slim, with long blonde hair and youthful. The student took her place at the front of the class and proceeded to teach. She was the Dr., twenty-six years old. She might as well have been wearing a t-shirt with the words, "If you're over forty and in this class, you're a loser." I tried to put those thoughts out of my head.

I immediately liked her teaching style and the course content. I looked forward to going to class three days a week, for a full three hours each time. The biggest thing I had to get past was the fact that my college professor was almost young enough to be my child. Her age put an exclamation point on the nagging phrase that ran through my head all the time:

"You're wasting your life."

I aced every test. The online school account said I was well on my way to an 'A'. I poured through the thick textbook as I sat in a lounge chair on the back lawn, soaking in the summer sun and drinking in knowledge with a brain that had been left dormant for far, far too long. I could not believe I was actually getting this stuff, the one who'd been called a 'poor learner', and more than once. Several more-than-kind grade school teachers had the nerve to pen that very phrase on report cards over the years. Now I was taking a college course and it was invigorating; there was no 'work' involved, it was pure joy. Like a hobby, but I got credit for it.

The young Dr. proved to be an 'old soul', and verbally talented. Anyone who could keep a roomful of people entertained and interested for three solid hours surely knew their stuff. She did warn us that those studying psychology were prone to thinking they had the abnormalities talked about in class. It was apparently a well-known hazard among psychology majors. When the Dr. told us about 'the woman who couldn't forget', I worried. I still remembered the names of my acquaintances' mothers' pets...what could that mean? 'The woman that couldn't forget's' fate was that it drove her up the wall, having facts and figures in her head that never flowed back out.

I fretted about that for months afterward.

Focusing on What's Inside

As I prepared for surgery, I scratched out thoughts and feelings through fervent journal writing. I did some blogging, too, but feeling like I got burned with that before (with my first husband's anger over my participating in a blog site), I was timid about it, not serious.

The 'tiny snips' the nurse from the surgical center had promised me over the phone when I'd called with nervous questions before my procedure were nothing of the sort. The surgeon had done a quilting bee, and on my face. Things were rearranged and grotesquely swollen.

If there was ever a time to rely on my personality and character, this would have been it. I wasn't so sure what would be what after things had healed up. Having the choice to either worry myself sick about my appearance, or to try to let that part of me go, I decided to focus more on the inside.

Writing, yet again, was a tremendous help.

My essay-type blog posts became more heartfelt. My poetry also began to have some flavor it hadn't previously held. Comments from other bloggers began to trickle in, telling me how my words had touched and affected them. This was an undeniable rush.

Why was it different about this time around? Two factors. I was giving myself time to write, and I was more conscious than ever of my mortality, which provided an 'I don't care if you like it or not, this is me' sort of an attitude. All in all, my writing was much more sincere, which in turn drew more interest.


As the weeks went by and I healed up, the swelling went down and I could see that my face would, for the most part, recover with an only slightly altered form. I continued to write with as genuine a voice as I could muster, learning this took maintenance. Skipping a few days or even a week meant battling personal walls again, and re-learning to open up emotionally. I found that outside events could also cause some backsliding, anything that created a self-protective, withdrawing mode would become a barrier, writing-wise.

The blog site I used had a ranking system, where I could easily see the popularity level of my blogs. The personal essay blog out-ranked the poetry blog by a long stretch, indicating what readers preferred. I started ranked at something like the 3,000th. Each day that number decreased. 1000th, 514th, 200th. Knowing this blog was international, to reach the 200 area was satisfying for me. Other than my high school teacher's comments, I'd never known any sort of recognition for my writing. Fellow bloggers' encouraging interactions and watching the rankings climb was what kept me posting.

Tips From a Pro

If I was going to have cancer, I was going to use it to my full advantage.

It became the perfect excuse to get out of managing the Gems. I was no longer worried about the loss of income; I really didn't care, having far better things to do with my time than to preserve dwellings that were already---who were we kidding--- essentially marked for the bulldozer. I gave my notice, stating 'health issues' as the reason. Instead of throwing a fit or getting upset because I'd let them down (my worst fear), the owners graciously wished me well and promptly found themselves another property manager.


I took some time off. I wrote in my journal. I took a few naps, and a few walks with my children and spouse. I pondered at least as much as I'd pondered while running the cleaning business, but these thoughts were even more serious and concentrated. Morbid or not, I kept envisioning a large grandfather clock tick-tocking away, and the tip of my deceased-from-cancer friend's nose sticking out of his casket during his funeral service.

I started to clean and organize even more, feeling the intense (and probably overly-dramatic) need to get things in order.

Since space at our home was limited, I had a computer and files stored in my daughter's room, where we all had no choice but to visit if we wanted to use that particular PC. I began toying with writing just a little. I started up an anonymous blog and began to spend more time in that space. My daughter began to go to sleep to the sounds of my click-clacking on the keyboard. Despite the cleaning I'd done in other areas, the desk the computer sat on was usually somewhat cluttered, as were the files I had also stored in that room. I decided that tidying up that particular space was the least I could do.

While going through files and paring down what was now irrelevant, I came upon a once- familiar green folder marked 'Freelance Writing.'

Years ago while attempting to blog for the first time, I'd become 'e-friends' with a woman named Fiona. Her writing stood out far and away from that of other bloggers. It was known she'd been hard at work making a living with her skills. Fascinated, I asked about her journey towards becoming a professional writer. In reply, I got a long and very thorough email. This I printed up and placed in the green folder for future reference.

Just days later, my first and continuously-struggling marriage began to unravel the rest of the way. Many long months of derailment and detours followed, and the thin green folder had been hastily stuffed into a portable file as it was moved from the family home in the country to the post-divorce house in town, forgotten about for years, until now. Seeing it again yanked me back to the day I'd hungrily perused Fiona's list, wondering if I could ever follow in her footsteps. I opened it again now.


"Brace yourself," she'd written, "This is going to be a long answer, since you've asked about my passion---writing.
I began with blogs and found them a useful forum for practicing. Once I felt comfortable with that, I decided to approach magazines. I sent my first article to Cosmo and was lucky, the editor was really sweet and sent back a very encouraging rejection letter. Thinking back, I cringe. I did everything wrong. (Before submitting, read their guidelines thoroughly!)
You can submit articles to online sites and if those don't sell try selling to another site until they do. Keep a list of what you've sold, and which website it appeared on. Copy and paste your articles and save them for future reference, because when querying with a new editor, I find it much more effective to say, "This sample was published in ABC newspaper..."
As a new writer, you may not have many clips but I've found that research and confidence can more than make up for that. My suggestion is that you use what you know first. If you have any qualifications that you can use, find the right publication and use them.
The idea is to be able to convince the editor that you are the best person to write the piece. You need to be somewhat familiar with the publication. (I once sent a story and then found out that they'd done a piece on that very topic in that month's issue.)
I also kept queries as short as possible. Never, ever irritate the editor. Editors get hundreds of emails a day. You stand a better chance if yours is short and to the point. Don't tell them that you've never been published and be confident in your email.
Look to your local newspapers, can you write something for them? If so, check and recheck what you send them, and edit it down ruthlessly. The easier you make the editor's life, the better it is for you. I send my articles and then leave the editor alone until I have another article idea. Also, always be polite. If a piece is rejected, send a short 'thank you' email. Don't argue about the validity of your article. If they don't want it, move on and find someone who does. If the editor doesn't respond (and many don't), move on. If the editor is rude, don't sink to their level, just cross them off the list. You have to develop a very thick skin. If your writing gets rejected it does not necessarily mean it is bad but just that it's not right for the publication. Rejection can be disappointing but don't let it get to you.
Best piece of advice? Never, ever give up. If something doesn't work, find another way. Always ensure that you read and re-read your work. Your aim is to submit perfection. Research, research, research. Know your target publication. Who is their target demographic, story length, writing style, type of articles, type of advertisements.
Read, read, read! You'll get so many ideas, it's unreal.

Regards,

Fiona"

What To Leave Behind

The Gems continued to have problem after problem. I'd drive by and see a police car, lights off, parked outside one of the units and just shake my head, roll my eyes, groan inwardly and drive on. It seemed bizarre that I'd gotten used to that sort of thing. I'd also learned not to tell anyone which houses I was managing, since once they realized the described location, the conversation would ultimately turn to tales of drug sales and busts, prostitution, or a murder in the basement.

Whenever a tenant moved out (with or without giving notice), I'd try to bring a muscular son or two along while I was cleaning. They didn't enjoy being there for hours on end, and I got none of the solitude I used to get when I owned the cleaning business.

"This is a trashy place, why don't you just quit managing these?" they'd frequently ask.

I had the same thoughts. Once again I was concerned that if I quit, I would not be 'earning my keep' within our household. Being in a second marriage, my husband's former wives (!) had, according to him, all held at least part-time jobs and had been a source of income. I already had an issue with comparing myself to the others, and financially it was no different. To let go of the money I was making off the Gems didn't seem prudent until I could replace it with the same or greater amount from another source.

This caused no small amount of dissonance within. I'd promised my fellow-cleaner friend with a solemn vow, 'no bleach', and there I was, scrubbing again. I rationalized that this was different, that I no longer cleaned for a living, but it was a weak argument. I was also clearly working in a dangerous part of town, which didn't make a lot of sense no matter what angle I angled it. The money earned wouldn't be any consolation if something adverse and/or life-altering happened. My hair stood on end and my spine tingled each and every time I entered one of those ancient units. Haunted? Undoubtedly. Full of 'bad' energy? Like an atomic bomb. As I swept, vacuumed and dusted I wondered in which of the rooms the murders had been committed. Since all four of the houses had basements, and according to the tales I'd heard, that was the likely scene of crime. My active imagination got the best of me a time or two, when I thought the cleaning cloth sitting on the counter top that brushed against my arm was someone who'd just emerged from the closet, watching for an opportunity to maim and destroy. Brooms or jackets hanging on a hook sometimes got mistaken for a person or personage.

Still, month after month I took the barely-literate phone calls, showed the units that were vacant to (often suspicious-looking) would-be tenants, and worried about who was going to get shot in a basement next and whether or not I'd have to be the one to clean up the blood stains. It was getting ridiculous; yet I wouldn't crack. I kept telling myself that I had to be responsible, make money and not be a quitter.

Someone else had other plans.


I got cancer.

After a skin biopsy that I hadn't been that worried about, (I'd actually put it out of my head) the doctor called me back on a Friday morning, surprising me by saying it was cancerous, serious and that I needed to have surgery right away. This wasn't anything immediately life threatening, he told me in his calm, business-like doctor's voice, but it could turn into a huge issue if I didn't take care of it as soon as possible.

I didn't clean that day. I didn't do anything at all that was 'useful' that day. I took myself to a movie theater and watched, of all things, "Mama Mia", crying through the entire feature with the thought that I might not be around for my daughter's wedding after all. It didn't help that I'd attended a friend's funeral not long ago who had died of the exact same type of cancer I had just been told I had.

I did some thinking in that theater that afternoon. Big time.

If my days were numbered, how did I want to spend them and what did I want to leave behind? Occupied, paying rental units? Well-cleaned, hundred-year-old crap traps? The memory of telling my children, 'not now, I’m busy’ because I had to run down to the Gems yet again?

Not even.

The Right To Relax

My property management business overlapped with my slowly winding-down cleaning business. I was taking fewer and fewer cleaning jobs. When employees left for other pursuits, I didn't replace them, knowing I didn't want a future on that path.

By that time, I'd listened to so much NPR, the intellectual part of me was begging to get used. The constant hum of thoughts churning inside my mind was almost distracting.

I cleaned my last unit. I didn't know it was my last, I just had that insistent feeling during the many hours I spent there that it might have been. My lunch with a friend cinched it.

This friend and I had met in Real Estate school years ago. We'd had big plans for making the bucks, back in the day. In a beyond-strange twist of fate, both of us wound up divorced single moms, cleaning for money instead. We both eventually laughed and many times nearly cried about that fact, jokingly coming up with useful cleaning tips like, "If you do have to cry, do it over the commode...the salt in your tears acts a natural and effective cleaning agent." On this day, we'd both been discussing doing something (almost anything) other than scrubbing to earn a paycheck. My friend suddenly leaned over the cafe table and looked directly into my eyes.

"Raise your right hand and repeat after me," she firmly told me. Then she said, "NO BLEACH."

I laughed and agreed, mostly because I rarely used bleach in my cleaning solution, but I got her point. It was time for both of us to move on.

After that last unit, whenever a property manager called, I'd tell them that I was sorry, I couldn't help them that time. And the time after that, and the time after that. Putting into words that I was closing my business was still not something I found easy to do, and I never did. Eventually everyone stopped calling, which seemed right to me. (Yet admittedly not fair to 'them'). A gradual and natural death. My brain found it hard to believe that after more than two years of wearing myself out to get the cleaning business going, after the marketing and the advertising and the building up of reputation as a competent cleaning service...that I'd just let it go. My heart, however, was joyous.

Since property management is a sporadic thing (the renters need something when you least expect it, and usually when it's the least convenient time, like midnight), I found that many of my days were oddly wide-open. I didn't feel comfortable puttering around the house while my self-employed husband worked eight-plus hours in his home office down the hall. I still had it in my head that I needed to be 'worth my keep.' A carryover, I'm sure, from my bio-father, who regularly used to say to us, if he happened upon us lounging, "Why don't you go make yourself useful?"

Tired as I was from two-plus years of the intense housecleaning of some of the filthiest properties on God's green earth, I didn't feel I had the right to slow down, nor did I give myself permission to do so.

I started to desperately clean and organize my own home, hoping that my thoroughness and organization would get me accolades from all who dwelt within. They noticed, and probably appreciated it, but no one went wild with the praise. No one ever said, "You clean baseboards better than anyone I've ever known."

So I canned salsa and peaches and dried fruit and cooked fantastic meals. Again, appreciated but not ultimately fulfilling. Many times when I'd need validation, I go out to the shelves in the garage and just stare at the rows of jarred tomatoes, pears, and pickles.

I shifted to outdoors and cared for the lawn, planting flowers and rearranging landscaping. I became the one to depend on, running household errands or doing the banking for my husband, since he was busy and hard at work. Were I to have stopped whatever I was doing to have remained stationary long enough to write for hours on end, the guilt would have no doubt consumed me.

From Blogging to Bad Renters

I started with blogging.

I'd actually tried blogging a couple of years earlier. Some halting posts, a little awkward poetry. It was on an interactive site, and the other bloggers said some nice things and made me feel accepted.

This during a tricky time in my first marriage where there was a lot of resentment, and very little trust both ways, earned or otherwise. My then-husband did not have the password into my private blogging site, and that irritated him quite a lot.

"What you are doing on that blogging site, you should be ashamed of!" he raged one day. I almost laughed out loud. I'd been doing some anonymous journal-ly type stuff and creating some bad poetry. How evil.

His anger, however, was enough to slow me down some. By the time I'd taken the kids and moved out, I wasn't blogging at all. Who had time, with an upcoming divorce and bills to pay?

After the NPR program's spotlight of author Nancy Peacock, I knew I needed to stop living the mute life. I think one of the things that bothered me the most about the housecleaning business was also the thing I loved the most about it. I was hidden. No one saw me, no one heard me. The summing up of my personality to a tee. I need to be introverted and solitary a full half of the time. The other half, I need to be out with the public, interacting, relating, observing.

I had many things to say about many subjects. Probably the same old list, but I could say them MY way. Growing up with child abuse. Living with a verbally cruel spouse. How to get by on fifty bucks a week with a family of four. Making the mental adjustment from well-off property and business owner to a housecleaning business-owning renter. Not everyone had been through these ordeals, but perhaps I could help the populace to understand them better, from my point of view.

One thing was certain; I was tired of having no voice.

When I thought about what it felt like to be virtually invisible, to have about no say, I quickly recalled the many nightmares I'd had where my bio-father was coming after me, with the intention of harm. In those dreams, he'd smile the same glaze-eyed, numb little smile every time. No matter what I did, I couldn't get him to back off. I'd open my mouth to alert whoever else was around that this bad man was up to no good, but nothing would come out, no matter how much air I took in to produce the loudest scream I could muster.

I was so done with being mute.


A couple of years after my divorce, as a remarried woman, I reassessed my priorities. I knew I didn't want to grow my cleaning business. I'd watched employee after employee get physically and mentally burnt out, and I was right there with them. Anyone that can do that kind of work for any length of time has the intellectual and emotional toughness of an Olympian. It wasn't for me.

I got some child support, thank Heavens, and that kept me going, but in order to not feel financially burdensome to this new fellow, I felt obligated to continue trying to make a living.

I started a property management business and got a few clients. One client owned four ancient properties downtown that I laughingly called 'the Gems', because they'd easily be any property management's worst bet. Dilapidated and tired, the Gems and their low rental fees were magnets for the interesting, chemically-dependent types. I cleaned and staged the cottages with both of the eyes behind my head as wide open as I could get them. I wasn't in the best part of town, and although no one had said it outright, I could sense that these 'Gems' had a colorful history.

That was confirmed when two men in uniform came pulling into the short driveway as I was out on one front porch with a broom, brushing off the cobwebs. They didn't even get out of their car, just signaled me. Trusting the official look, I approached, assuming they were lost and needed directions. They needed directions, all right. To a very fiery location. It became obvious to me that they were hoping for the same kind of experience they'd had previously at that residence. After the first few words and upon seeing the disdain in my look, they quickly backed out of the driveway, not making any further eye contact.

Break-ins, vandalism, and the scent of unwashed bodies long after they'd spent an unauthorized night inside the rentals followed. To find decent renters that stayed employed and stayed off the sauce proved to be close to impossible. If they weren't drinking or abusing drugs when they moved in, they'd be into it by the time they left. Their neighbors in the other three Gems would get them involved, like the good neighbors they were.

I was overwhelmed. Because of its low rent, and because I only took a percentage, the Gems brought me as little as $500 per month. When I'd have a sore back from picking up cigarette butts at the now-vacant (because they moved out unexpectedly under the cover of darkness) units, I'd ask myself if any of this was even worth it. By this time, I knew I wanted to write, but to sit in front of a computer for hours when I had an obligation to hold up my half of the financial bargain would, I thought, make me look like the biggest of slackers. When would I ever have that time to myself, and if I took it, would I even produce anything of value?

I didn't know.

Follow The Leader

I didn't always know I'd become a writer.

What I did know was that if I was breathing, I'd be writing. Whether that would be journaling, blogging, or writing professionally, it was all the same to me. I had to get the words out and trusted myself to do that.

Like many people who find their true vocation a little later in the game, I took multiple detours. Fresh out of high school I worked at a fast food establishment, one of the only jobs to be had in a college town where throngs of students clamored for any kind of employment. I worked in a bakery as a professional cake decorator, off and on for nearly ten years. I learned to prepare taxes, teach preschool, run a daycare. I even became a licensed electrical contractor and a general building contractor. Housecleaning and property management were in the mix, too.

While I could do all of those things well enough, none of them stuck. Quite frankly, I was miserable doing many of them.

My post-divorce job was as a cleaning business owner. I ran a six to ten-person crew. We restored vacant rental properties. I often worked alone while others worked together, needing the quiet to collect my thoughts. I was angry and hurting over my divorce, and my life felt more than chaotic. I figured that if I could just spend enough time alone, I could sort things out, both what had just happened and what I was going to do with the remainder of my days. Cleaning proved to be an effective tool for that.

Many people around me thought that what I was doing was impressive, having gone from being an electrical contractor to a cleaning business owner without skipping much of a beat. I did what I had to do to provide for my children. That didn't mean I liked it.

I heard, "You're such a business-woman!" all the time. I received tons of encouragement. Some assumed that the business would become another franchise like a few of the now-larger cleaning services had done. While I know they were being kind, none of that talk sat well with me, and I needed to figure out why. Why would I throw away a perfectly good business opportunity, one I had been striving feverishly to make a go of? I eventually got very honest with myself: I didn't want more cleaning jobs. I didn't like supervising, being the boss, the paperwork, or the cleaning. I knew I couldn't strive for an end goal of something I really didn't want.

Just because I could do something didn't mean that I should.

Though the introvert in me preferred solitude, I often got lonely enough to switch on the portable radio I carried in my cleaning kit. Listening to talk radio sprouted colorful thoughts in my mind that were soon popping like firecrackers on the fourth of July. A forgotten tap had been turned on, and it was hard--if not impossible--to turn it off. Notions of essays I could write, stories I could tell, ideas for fictional novels all kept me awake at night. I dreamed of these tales, waking in the mornings with a smile on my lips.

Hungry to put pen to paper, I began taking longer breaks in the tiny yards of the rentals I worked on. I'd sit out in the sun and write and write and write, finally forcing myself back into the stale units to finish cleaning.

The urge to write seemed to have a pattern of strengthening and waning. I'd begin a story or an essay, then get busy and leave it for later. When later would come, I'd have no idea where I'd planned to go with the piece, get frustrated and either quit or start something new.

There were days I told myself I could never put words together in a way that people would read. I remembered a talk radio program that claimed every writer had to have a goodly amount of narcissism in them, to be vain enough to think that anyone would want to read what they'd have to write. For myself, I wasn't sure if I had enough of that vanity, or if I could even fake having it. The only feedback I had was from the high school teacher who said I wrote ' very lucidly', and in considering my older sister's addiction to my journal writings when I wasn't looking, years before.

Then along came a day I'll never forget. It hadn't been a good day; I was in a junky public-school-from-the-sixties-green interior duplex. The place was filthy, it had to be scrubbed from top to bottom. I was in the process of wiping down the hideously-hued walls, feeling lower than usual. My radio was dialed in to a program about people who led double lives. I was only half listening.

The first segment featured an anonymous exotic dancer by night/kindergarten teacher by day. She had to work two towns down the road to avoid being discovered by a parent. Her other ongoing concern was that she might not be able to dance much longer, since she was pushing forty. I listened with only mild interest.

Then the interviewer switched to a housecleaner who was also a professional writer. Nancy Peacock (author of 'A Broom of One's Own' and other books) cleaned houses by day, then got dressed up to do readings in the spotlight in the evening. After she'd been published, she still kept her cleaning jobs for the steady income. In the same twenty-four-hour period she would both swish a mop and get celebrated for her literary creativity. She spoke of the huge contrast, and how the two worlds didn't play so well together. No kidding, I thought.

That was a breakthrough moment for me. If this woman could write a book (and later have it named the New York Times' Notable Book of the Year), I thought maybe I could too.

I knew more than most just how well spending time behind a broom could bring about soulful expression. Hearing that I wasn't alone was a pivotal moment. It gave me the nudge to consider giving the writing thing a go.