The Writing Life

People often ask me what those closest to me--especially my husband--think about all this stuff that I put out there on the Interwebs. In some ways this whole blogging thing is easier for me to get by with, because I started doing it for a seemingly untouchable reason: I found out I had cancer at a young age and I didn't want to have to talk to people about it, so I started writing about it. And then...well, all of this happened.

I started writing about other things, pontificating in that random Katy way that is too long and usually only circuitous at the end, when somehow it all comes back together. I know that soon I will no longer be able to write about my kids here, because they will be too old and self-conscious and they will hate me for it. On the other hand, on the very first day of that other blog, I said that my goal was to live long enough for my kids to hate me for some reason other than dying, so...there's that.

I also write about marriage, and sex, and past relationships in my blogs, and I know that many spouses would have a hard time with this. Gabe has never had qualms with what I say here, at least not that he has admitted. One time I did ask his "permission" to publish a post, in that I showed it to him before I hit "publish." It was when I wrote a post about how hard cancer is on a marriage. I asked him if he had a problem with it, and he said: It's your blog. It's your life that you're writing about. I'm just glad to be a part of it.

Aww, right?

Now look. Sometimes I see him rolling his eyes as he reads. A few times he has said, Really, Kate?, slightly aghast at the inappropriate shit that I reveal. Most of the time, though, he laughs, and very rarely is he surprised at what he reads.

That's because I am a storyteller. I have told him many of these stories before, unconcerned with how he would react if the story included some other man or another facet of my life that a husband might not want to know about. Gabe seems convinced, in fact, that I ALWAYS tell him stories that involve some other guy, because apparently those are the only ones that he bothers to remember. But the point is, he's here, he's my co-pilot, right? So, I tell him stuff.

Just not always right away.

Years after we met, after Lenny was born, we suddenly found ourselves in a situation where we were actually around each other a lot. We got married a year and a half after our first date and Lenny was born less than a year and a half after that. When we met, we were both working full time and I was in grad school. We were busy 20- somethings. Then, we had this kid, and we both took paternity leave. And we had all this time together, learning how to deal with a newborn when neither of us had ever even held one before, and, well, we started telling each other stories. We learned things about each other that we had never bothered to learn in the three previous years. I'm the talker here (shocking, I know) so I told more stories than he did.

What I'm trying to say is, life is an interesting story, and if you are interested in writing, it's probably because life interests you enough to remember what it was like. I write so I can remember my life. But to get it right, I often tell the story to someone first.

Gabe is not a writer. He tells stories differently. Sometimes, they take years to come out. For example, after Augie was born, I went to the department store to buy shoes (also shocking, I know). I decided to buy Gabe some shoes and was embarrassed to admit that I didn't know my husband's shoe size. Seven years together, married with two kids, and I had no clue what size shoe he wore. I called him to ask, and when he said 11.5, I was surprised. "But honey, you're only 5'9"! What's up with those big feet? And those gorilla arms and hands!"

I was teasing him, right? And then he starts telling me about how when he was 13 and 14 and he was living with whoever would take him in, he was hungry. He survived on butter sandwiches or something and his growth was stunted. His feet kept growing, his arms got longer, but he didn't get taller. Some doctor at some point told him he should have been 6'1".

I stood there in the store, not quite knowing what to do with this information that had never been divulged to me in the past seven years by the person closest to me, and I said the only thing that could have been said: "Well, damn, honey, I could have used a tall man in my house! 11.5 it is!"

And life went on. We continue to tell each other stories, but I have had the opportunity since then to hear more of them, in part because I have learned to ask very specific questions until the stories come out. Yesterday, I asked Gabe if he had ever gotten into fights as a kid. There was some reason this came up, but that is escaping me now. He gave some examples of getting picked on in grade school and high school, talked about how he used his tae kwon do to get him out of situations, said he never understood the point of fighting, especially since he has such a hard head that when kids would punch him in the head, he would just stand there and say, look, you could do that all day and it won't do a damn thing to me. And then he said this:

Then there was the time that I got suspended from kindergarten.

Excuse me?

The story goes like this. Apparently there were older kids used as "crossing guards" to stop the younger kids from running near the school. Gabe was tearing around running anyway, the older kid told him to stop, and he didn't listen. So the older kid caught him in a bear hug and Gabe began pummeling him with little five year old fists, kicking him and screaming "IT'S A FREE COUNTRY!"

So he got temporarily kicked out of kindergarten for beating up the crossing guard.

I can honestly say, I'm glad to be a part of it all too. If you like to write, you need to surround yourself with people who can provide some good material.

Here we are, 30 years ago, at age seven. Who would have guessed?