I do not want to be the kind of wouldbe grandmother who puts pressure on her kids. An Indian boyfriend once told me that if a young couple had no children in his country, older women in the family would not hesitate to pull either one of the young people aside and say, "So, any trouble in the bedroom?" We broke up for other reasons, but his vignette has lingered in my memory as an object lesson on how not to be. I especially want to avoid it because during the dancing at my daughter's wedding reception, one of her Zambian-American groom's older female friends and relations came up to where I was sitting and, bending down, said, "Our people like to dance. But we will really dance when they have a child!"
Once my daughter and son-in-law brought it up, I did admit to some excitement about the possibility, but I try not to put pressure. It is a matter between them, none of my business unless they want to share something. Also, I am an adult with a full life. I do not need other people to do things for me so I can complete myself.
Nevertheless, I can't help but have a few dreams and ideas on the subject of hypothetical future grandmothering. So I wrote them down as an automatic writing exercise for my prose poetry workshop, and later saw in the Wordrunner eChapbooks newsletter that its editors were looking for submissions to their second issue of microprose. As I recall, they wanted stories of no more than 200 words with strong characters and plots. Tall order. At the end, seemingly as an afterthought, they said they would also consider prose poetry.
I had some doubts, as I usually do in these cases. Would the editorial team really go for what I feel is a poem that has pretty archetypal characters established mostly by a strong voice and some details about their activities, activities that seem more like a list of things one might do in Chicago than a plot? I was fond of the piece, but that might be a personal thing that wouldn't translate to readers. Besides, I had written it automatically. How good could it be?
Luckily, I had just read it among friends and gotten a positive reception. So I submitted the piece. I am happy to say that Editor Jo-Anne Rosen not only accepted it but called it "this gem of a micro." All of which is especially sweet as I have been rejected from this venue at least once. Thanks to Editor Rosen and the Wordrunner team! I am happy to have found my grandmother dreams a healthy outlet.
No comments:
Post a Comment