I woke up this morning to cat vomit on the kitchen table and an overflowing toilet. After those issues were resolved, I was struck with a rare urge to continue cleaning. So I cleaned out our closet.
I am a recovering hoarder, so the closet is where I store the things I know I will never use again but am not quite emotionally ready to throw away.
Like the T-shirt my Japanese friend gave me on our last day in New Zealand with the image of a hippopotamus with a bucket on its head and the poorly-placed protruding metal accessory that looks like a nipple ring. And the bag I used every day of grad school, a gift from my mom we picked out together because it “looks like fall.”
And my polka-dotted rain boots.
I wrote an essay six years ago about how those polka-dotted rain boots changed my life. But they didn’t change my life. Writing the essay about how they changed my life changed my life.
That essay got me a spot as a weekly columnist for my university’s award-winning newspaper. It became my first of sixty columns. It gave me my first experience being published and widely read.
It taught me that writing to entertain others was something I never wanted to stop doing.
Life has changed since then. Being a writer is no longer quite as light and easy as sitting down every Sunday night with a box of Cheez-its, pounding out 500 words about whatever random topic pops into my head, sending it in to have the profanities edited out, and seeing it published two days later with no further questions asked.
If writing a column was like building a model of a flea, then writing a book is like building a model of a human-sized squid. (And finding an agent and building a following and making yourself marketable and gag me gag me gag me is like constructing every animal in the whole damn aquarium).
But those boots. Those boots were what I was wearing when I took my first steps into this crazy world of writing. When I took my first look around and, though I knew there would be as many days of rain as there were of sunshine, said “Yep. This is where I want to be.”
As I took my polka-dotted rain boots out to the trash this morning, I thought of a line from a book I read years ago: If you want to remember, just remember.
And I will.
(Photo from glambistro.com)
You can read my rain boot article here.
You are so charming! Love the boots, love the humor, love your blog!
Thank you!
At first I thought those were your feet and thought, “Oh, no, she has my mom’s hammer toes.” Relief!
Haha… dodged that one… I hope… not really sure what hammer toes are.
Nice.
“It taught me that writing to entertain others was something I never wanted to stop doing.” The best day.
I liked this piece a lot. Keep the faith.
Thanks!
Saving this post and specifically that last line for when my coworker comes over next week and raids my closet! (She says I need to throw out about 50% of my wardrobe and start dressing like someone who’s not a soccer dad.)
Also – re: the writing of a book, SRSLY! I was expecting to be so easy, and boy was I wrong and BOY am I glad we at least have each other on the journey to published!
Nothing wrong with soccer dads!
WTF is up with writing books anyway? Should we just eat cheesecake and listen to Mariah Carey instead?
“If you want remember, just remember” ! White Oleander!!
I adore your writing and will follow it to the ends of all universes. Profanities included.
Yes, White Oleander! I definitely thought of you as I wrote about that quote. I think about it all the time. Here’s to all the hundreds (maybe THOUSANDS?) of universities you will follow me to…
cheers!
I am a total packrat and I must commend you. I could never have thrown away those boots. They look like perfectly good boots! Geez, you should’a given them to me – I could put them in my attic and mull over them for YEARS!
Hahaha. It’s taken me a LONG time to be able to convince myself to throw things away. Having a tiny apartment helps
Gotta love a good pair of wellies! Mine are zebra print and they are fantastic. Can’t believe this type of boot counts as seasonal – I think they are best worn in the summer at a festival
Zebra print sounds awesome!
Love the boots! Will check out your rainboot article next! It is very true…. It’s the writing that can change your life, as this is where one sorts out the lesson learned….. Love your blog!
Thanks!
I read your article and those boots WERE hard to find. Especially for my big feet. I found a pair once – way after the height of the rubber boot trend – but I still had to have them. Bought them. Waited for the perfect weather only to discover that though they were the correct size the left boot was much tighter. I only had them on for 30 minutes before they began to hurt to much I was in tears. I had to pull the car over and take them off. Still bitter ;-/
Mine were actually surprisingly painful as well! Who would have thought that rubber doesn’t make the most comfy shoe material? Oof, oh well. WORTH IT.