Recently, I was looking for an essay I wrote several years ago. I wanted to revise it for my writing group. I didn't find the essay, but - oh - I found so much more. So instead, I wrote about that for my writing group. This is a revised version of that piece.
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There are countless documents in a folder titled "writing projects" on my PC desktop. A search for keywords in that folder doesn't yield the hoped-for result. There's another folder titled "OLD PC documents." A quick scan of that folder reveals a hodgepodge of documents, including a variety of resumes and cover letters and a range of my children's files from "Anna's fall party invites" to "Max's rap" to "zine template - about me." Those documents predate the essay I'm searching for, so I move on to paper files.
Several overstuffed manila file folders crowd the bookshelf near my desk. One holds multiple copies of an essay I wrote over 25 years ago for an in-person writer's roundtable at Red Bird Writing Studio in Milwaukee. We printed out copies for each person in the group, and they wrote comments by hand. Behind those is my senior honors thesis written sometime in the spring of 1991 before I graduated from the University of Minnesota. It's about telenovelas. It seems to analyze the economics of Latin American countries developing their own programs versus importing shows from the U.S. I'm not sure as I lost interest after reading the first few pages. Next are various other college papers and essays, including one on the "new technology" (written in 1986!) and another entitled "The Existence of God." I'm intrigued by that one but decide I'll read it later and keep searching instead.
Another couple of folders hold completely random pieces of writing with no particular order or organization. There's a Black History month skit I wrote with my fifth-grade students in 1999 filed with an essay about my kids' obsession with "arm farts" that was published in 2008. There's very personal writing, like the speech I delivered at my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in 2008 and the obituary I wrote for my dad's funeral in 2010. Drafts of blog posts are also in the mix; I published 130 posts from 2014-2020. Then there are printouts of pieces I wrote for various classes or groups along with the feedback from facilitators and cowriters.
Besides my own writing, the folders also contain printouts of articles about the craft of writing, submissions guidelines for publications that no longer exist, and rules for outdated writing contests. I also found a printout of "The Seven Continents," a short rhyming poem to aid in memorizing the continents. That, along with a fraction problem on the back of an essay draft, are evidence of our homeschooling years woven in with my writing.
I may not have found the story I was searching for, but I found so many others. And I'm not even talking about the writing. Whether for an audience of one or one hundred, my writings are artifacts filled with ideas and memories and love. I was so moved while rifling through those papers that I almost came to tears. And then, there's another story too. One that says I always come back to my writing, all through the years, no matter what. And I always will.
