MARGIN RELEASE me.

So lately I’ve been in a rut. Tired, grumpy, unable to play and hateful about all my responsibilities. There’s no reason for it. Nothing has changed to make me suddenly hate each passing day. It just came upon me and settled. Telling a friend about it last night, she asked, “What’s the way out of it?” I had no answer. But early this morning I woke up and knew, without a doubt, how to climb on out. It is simple really. It is beautiful. It is fortunate.

MARGIN RELEASE.

Let me back up. Months ago, my sister organized The Bright Night, a fantastic 5K charity race in honor of Emily. All the proceeds went to ovarian cancer research and outreach programs. There were a lot of proceeds. I met a woman that night that drove over two hours to volunteer. Anne Marie Iselin came with my good friend Ann, having never met me, my sister, Emily or anyone else affected by ovarian cancer. She came because it sounded like a good thing to do. Because it was a new experience. Because why not help others if you can? This woman is another of the Keepers out there.

So when my friend Ann said Anne Marie had just rented space at the Goldenbelt in Durham, a new and very hip artists’ gallery/studio space and did I want to go check out her jewelry? I said, yes, yes, yes. Anne Marie makes very unique, colorful, lively pieces made of lacquered paper. I found the perfect bracelet within seconds of entering her space. Teal and red, very different and yet familiar. But, there are some pieces in her jewelry collection not made of paper. Her dad has a penchant for finding little treasures for his daughter with the proud knowledge that she can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Dad’s can be like that, seeing potential in their daughter’s that others may not find. Her father found some old typewriter keys. Anne Marie turned them into rings. I now own one because as a writer I couldn’t walk away. Not from the key I found in the bunch. Not from the possibility it spoke of. It had to be mine.

MARGIN RELEASE.

It’s been a while since I’ve played on a typewriter. What I was looking at was not clear to me at first. I’d forgotten that typewriters had very distinct margins, actual physical barriers the carriage could not bypass. Once it hit the margin, it dinged merrily and stuttered back to the beginning of the next line. I loved that! I’d type nonsense quite happily waiting for the end of the line, the little ping!, and then the skipping backwards of the carriage to a new beginning. Over and over, pages and pages of jumbled letters marching in order just for the satisfaction of watching the typewriter perform its marginal duties. Ding!

But every so often, I’d hit one little key and all bets were off. Rules became obsolete. Line endings were completely at my whim. Beginnings ended up in the strangest places. Jumbles of letters like abstract pictures leapt all over the page. That was the power of the MARGIN RELEASE key. And I’d completely forgotten it existed.

Margins on computers are built right in. You open a blank document and the words very orderly begin their march. Left to right, top to bottom they go. Every once in a while you click an icon that makes them line up from the center or bunch up at the right side instead of the left. But it’s rare. I don’t think about the margins. I just write within them, live within them, think within them, breathe within them. And I don’t even realize they are there, constantly reigning me in. No wonder I’m stuck. No wonder I’d rather poke out my own eye than fold another load of laundry, put another dish away, scrub one more toilet, sit in a carpool line, and on and on. I allow my characters to wander and make mistakes and leap over margins, but not myself. Who else am I marginalizing? My children? My husband? My friends? How much can I cram in my one-inch margins? It’s getting rather crowded in here.

MARGIN RELEASE.

Time to

open up

to

the

lively

& unique possibilities

all

around

ME.