"I believe in the intuitive or artistic comprehension of truth, even beyond reason." ~ Maryanna Shorba Manfred
It was never my
intention to become you,
but I had no choice.
One of my most inspirational mentors and friends was Maryanna. She was the editor of the church newsletter where I worked as the religious education coordinator and office administrator. Each month I would bring her the copy for the newsletter, wait in her living room as she bloodied the papers with her red ink editing marks, and then hope for a few words of praise about the parts I contributed to the newsletter. When I told her I had some poems and a few short stories, she graciously invited me to bring them to her.
One day, sans children, I brought over some of my writings. Just as when I brought the newsletter, she took my copy and motioned for me to wait in her living room. Her usual complaints of writers not knowing basic rules of grammar were absent. The "Jesus Christ what's this?" comments were not offered. I even imagined the pen was scratching with less frequency than what was usually used on the newsletter. There was an eerie silence as she read my work - compared to the newsletter.
After what seemed like an eternity, I heard soft footsteps coming to the living room. She appeared in the door, moved some papers from a chair and sat down across from me. "These are, well, hmm, pretty terrible, " she finally blurted, her hands thrown into the air for extra emphasis. As her hands returned to her lap, atop papers, she just stared at me from behind her oversize glasses. I was fighting back tears.
"I don't know what to say," I finally coughed out.
"I know," she said. "Jesus Christ, I know." She looked back down to the papers and started shuffling them. "Do you like writing? I mean is it something you want to do. Because your ideas are good. Your ideas are real."
A ray of hope. I perked up a bit. "So you do like it? I mean, it's good? or okay?"
"No, no," she shook her head empahtically. "It's pretty terrible. You tie everything up so neat and tidy," she offered. "It's sort of sickening to read this - it's like you have access to some universal brilliance that the rest of us don't. It always ends well for you." Our eyes met as she looked at me and said, "you're not fooling anyone, well maybe yourself, but those of us who know you know that you haven't had an honest thought about your life in a long time."
I was not expecting an assessment of my life, just some advice about how to pace things, where to place commas, that sort of thing. I closed my eyes and held my eyelids gently, worried my tears would wash out my contacts. After what seemed like an eternity, Maryanna came and sat next to me on the couch. She didn't touch me. Or look at me. She just sat there. When I stopped crying she asked, "you done?" I nodded that I was, trying to contain the clear snot with my sleeve as it ran from my nose to upper lip. "Okay," she said as she moved back to the other chair. "Let's talk about turning your great thoughts and ideas into good writing."
That was the first of maybe a dozen meetings we had that encompassed writing and exchanging the stories of the realities of our lives. She was thirty-six years my senior, but we had shared experiences on our path. Too soon I moved a state away, but offered promises to continue our exchanges via mail. I never sent her anything to edit. She sent me birthday cards, inquiring if I was still writing. I was not.
Our relationship dwindled down to the annual hug and hello when I visited Sioux Falls, but so much of her stayed with me. She had some helpful suggestions for writing, but most of all she encouraged me to claim time and space for me, to claim importance for the things I was doing in life. "No one will give you more than you think you deserve," is her mantra that has stuck with me all these years.
A few days ago when on a road trip, I stopped in Sauk Center, Minnesota for fuel. Maryanna's voice popped into my mind as I waited for the gas to fill my tank, "go see it." I could not help but chuckle as I thought of a story she told me about her irreverance during a famous author's memorial service in Sauk Center when she was a young woman.
"I can't," I laughed in response. It would be fun to find the cemetary and grave, but I was in a hurry to see my family just an hour away. I pushed the thought away, got into my car and headed back to the freeway. Then, with intention, I drove past the entrance for the west bound lanes. I didn't get on the freeway. Instead, I pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned building. I googled Greenwood Cemetary, Sauk Center, Minnesota. It was just a mile or two away.
I turned back into town and followed the directions of the voice on google maps. I drove slowly around until I saw the tall marker. I got out and walked over to it. "Was this so hard?" came Maryanna's unamused gravley voice. I answered with deep breath, a touch of his tombstone, and a quick retreat back to the car. "Thats not how it works," she admonished. "Sit down. Read his books. Channel him, not me."
Just like twenty-three years ago, I quit paying attention to her. I headed the car back to I94, toward the lives I was eager to join. I tuned in the local rock station to distract me, and in an hour I arrived to squeals of delight that made me feel like, well, a long anticipated grandma. It's good to be a hero, no matter how small the tribute.
But, I can not stop thinking of Maryanna. Which is why I am sitting here, in giant glasses that could be hers, at a local coffee shop in Moorhead, fixing chapters six and seven of my book.
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