My daughter and her husband let me use their sound system so everyone would be able to hear me from their spots scattered around the lawn at the museum. My first memory of that spot was when it was Gale's soybean field and she was experimenting to see which varieties would do well here, and which were the most palatable. I wonder what she and my father would have thought to see a bunch of masked folks sitting around amongst all the lovely, bird-friendly plants gracing the spot now. I'm sure there must be some hearty soybean roots still hanging out among the lush flowers.
When Erin asked me if I had access to a sound system, I had to laugh. Since I'm part of a family of musicians, I have access to enough sound equipment that if we'd hooked it all together, I could have been heard down the road at the nature center, and I'm honestly not exaggerating. The first thing I did was promise not to sing, because that is something I cannot do, thank you very much. Not happening. Still, it was a weird switch for my family to have me be the one behind the mic and them watching me, after years and countless hours I've spent watching them. It was pretty cool.
This was my third public reading of my own work. The first was the year I graduated from Johnson State College. The instructor in charge of the writing program invited all of those graduating that year (there were three of us) to her home for dinner, and after a lovely meal and a lot of champagne, she said, "You folks should do a reading." In the moment, that seemed like an excellent idea, as absolutely everything was feeling quite excellent. I had forgotten all about it the next day, but she hadn't, and somehow a week later, the three of us found ourselves sitting behind a table in the art gallery in the Dibden Theater, hosting the rest of the college for an evening of readings. We muddled through the ordeal together, trembling, and it was a long time before I could look at a bottle of champagne without feeling the urge to bolt for cover.
My second reading was even more traumatic. I was finishing up my master's degree at the University of New Hampshire, and it was a non-negotiable requirement for all English majors with an emphasis in writing to perform a public reading, kind of the equivalent of defending a thesis for the literature majors. The reading was held in a huge auditorium, and all the undergrad English majors were required to attend. So it was packed with squirmy kids who would much rather be elsewhere on a spring evening at the end of the semester. The reading was built up into a big deal for the three semesters it took me to complete the degree, and we writers all worked ourselves up into quite a state. We were divided into groups of three to read over the course of a week, and fortunately, I was in the first group, though the last to read that night. It was one of the most insane evenings of my life. The first person to read was a young man who only wrote very, very short stories about meals. Mostly breakfast. He'd worked up to lunches before we graduated, but a five course dinner was something he only dreamed of tackling some day. We were encouraged to fill twenty minutes apiece, so he decided to spend the first five minutes eating a chocolate bar on stage, and then filled the next two minutes with his story about pieces of toast, and then he was done. (I thought it was hilarious, but the professors in the first row weren't amused.) The second reader was a friend of mine, and she had decided that afternoon, despite my protests, that she hated the story she was supposed to read, the one that had been approved of by the professors in the front row, and she wrote a new one on the bus on her way to campus for the reading. Suffice it to say it was a bit unpolished, and the professors were NOT impressed. So by the time I took the stage, the professors were looking daggers at me. Armed with a short story I had practiced reading until it was memorized, I remember mostly trying to stay conscious behind the microphone. I made it through somehow, and when the professors shook my hand afterward, one of them said, "Yours is the kind of story that made me remember the finer days of the writing program." So I graduated. (The others did, too, but they were called into offices for meetings that I was really glad I got to skip.)
Thirty year later, I sat on a stool on the side lawn of the museum behind a microphone, armed with a book I'd written. There were no champagne bottles or grim professors, just friendly faces and warm sunshine. I didn't know it because I was very focused, but someone told me a hummingbird flew around around behind me some of the time, and there was a lovely blue jay feather on the path that I took to be a good omen. People had ice cream and laughed, and I felt good that I had brought a few hours of happiness to people navigating a world full of fear and uncertainty.
I didn't have to worry about a grade this time, or making my teachers proud. Sure, there were ghosts there in the audience, and some sadness for the long ago soybean field. But my first two readings, and the soybeans, helped shape me into the writer I have become, and sharing that in the yard of my sibling museum was very, very special.
Thank you, everyone.
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