Who control those waters? It’s me. Only me. Me.

But lately I’m feeling this way: underrated. I don’t feel that I can’t succeed, that I’m not enough–chin above the plane where it all falls short. I feel thateveryone else sees me this way. Or doesn’t see me at all. Sometimes, I’m not sure which is worse.

I never supposed to slip through a crack of being average and great. Of having to explain myself across bounds and bounds to people who will never understand. I can surprise you, all of you. I can overturn your foolish misconceptions in seconds. Stop boxing me in. Let me out.

A high school philosophy teacher once taught us about magnanimity. At the time, it was a word unfamiliar. But exciting.

To be magnanimous meant to know your worth, he explained.

Wikipedia tells me it’s the “virtue of being of great mind and heart. It encompasses, usually, a refusal to be petty, a willingness to face danger, and actions for noble purposes.”

Am I being petty to let this underrated-ness get to me? What do I have to prove anyway? I know my self worth. I know the value of my words, my mind, my body. Or maybe the resolution is to face this perception–this danger–head on. That’s my noble cause–to grasp that self worth and squeeze the hell out of it, so that maybe one day, just when it doesn’t make the least bit of difference, I won’t care about being rated at all.

I’m not unhappy to be here alone — sitting, writing, watching. I used to hate the thought of eating by myself. But this year, I’ve embraced it. On lunch breaks and lonely nights when cereal must suffice.

Next to me, a flight to Tokyo has just boarded. They sit still on the runway, the royal blue painted wing peaking out above the walkway. The plane is massive because, really, who wants to travel halfway across the world on a cramped little jet? Not me.

The airport is oddly settled for the busiest travel day of the year. I can hear myself chew. The man next to me wipes his mouth with a napkin. A woman walks by on her cell, wearing a jacket adorned with fake animal fur, speaking something other than English. She makes a u-turn right after my table.

This is not a post about being thankful. But I want you to know that I am.

Because this is a post about me, being here, on my own, on thanksgiving, trying to get home. It’s the post about what comes before the good (the bad), what comes before the reunion (displacement), and what comes before the epiphany (confusion).

You have to lose yourself before you can be found. And this year has been filled with wandering in the dark.

The girl next to me is, I can tell, revolted by my simultaneous crunching and typing. I have orange dust from my sun chips on my hands and am trying desperately not to pollute my keyboard.

I should wait until I’m done.

But I’m never done. With writing. With observing. With capturing.

I can’t control when the time to write just sparks – which is precisely why I brought my laptop with me today.

Like the airport, I’m better off quiet. Better off here alone at the table, so I can think and listen to myself.

I’m thankful for everyone in my life but I’m also thankful that, every once in a while, they leave me alone. They let me be; they give me a break. And I’m as grateful that they’re there when I need them that they AREN’T there when I need them. Because it makes me grow and challenges me and teaches me to fend for myself. And I need that. Sometimes I need to just chin up and keep on plugging on a shitty day. If there’s something I’ve learned to live without in the past year, it’s sympathy. Because, damn, you aren’t going to get a lot in this world, huh? I’ve learned to embrace discomfort and uneasiness and displacement. Which is odd, for someone who perceives herself as utterly reliant on others. Maybe I’m changing. Like any season, I too can adapt out of necessity. I can withstand the cold and learn to keep warm–all on my own.

*

Note: most of this was written last Wednesday, November 24th, while waiting for my flight home to board. I made it back that afternoon, where I was surrounded by family and friends for five whole days.

The story is my life in cross-sections and threads.

The story is millions of smaller stories, winding their way to epiphanies.

The story is putting these child stories together in mosaic–not always pretty or smooth, not always a Matisse or a Gauguin, colors blurred like rainfall. The story is not the painters themselves, hunched over canvass, bodies rigid, furrowed brows, chiseled away from unfinished surfaces ahead. The story is not a dark freckle on their greasy foreheads. It’s just one string of the arc. The story is muddy and messy. It is a meandering wildfire. A spark into untold reality.

I am not the story.

I am not blurred watercolors; I am not untold. But I am. I am a piece of the whole, a thread in the yarn of narrative. I am a creator, but I am not omniscient. I don’t know what comes next.

Because I am not the story.

But I am muddy and messy. Meandering. A rough surface. An epiphany.

I am coming into all these things. As I write, I am becoming. Becoming a story.

But I will never be.

This story will never be me.

To me, truth means end.

Where something ends — a story line, a relationship, a plot, a piece of character development.

Our stories are still being told. I’m only 23.

What happens when you write something as is, and then suddenly, life turns it on its back?

You write about a banana, but then one day, you slip on the peel. You realize, it’s not about the banana; it’s about the peel and the subsequent fall and what you learned. Ultimately, the banana had very little meaning other than foreshadowing. Because, after all, a banana always means a peel and a peel always means a cartoon-like wipe out.

I slipped on the peel tonight. And now, it’s back to the drawing board.

Time to reimagine and recreate.

That original story wasn’t the story at all.

And maybe that’s

what makes creative nonfiction

both truthful and difficult.

Because this is part of the story, as well. This process here–this revelation.

Realizing the peel is the story IS the story’s climax. Or at least it might be. Sometimes.

So now what? You peel back the onion layers, hoping they too aren’t as slippery as that slimy yellow fiber? You dig deeper and feel grateful that you write in a craft that’s ever-evolving, ever-exciting, ever-challenging, ever-new.

He points to the small hanging fixture near the side door.

“Cool,” I reply, thinking of the little pink and blue home I once painted in our sun room, pastel-speckled newspaper spread all around me. After, Dad took a ladder out into the back and nailed it onto a tree between some overgrown shrubs–once referred to as ‘Alyssa’s garden’–and the shed that now houses his Halloween decorations.

Years later, when Dad hired someone to cut that same tree down, I agonized over the birds who’d settled there. Where would they go? Would they even survive?

Now, that old bird house sits in our garage on top of some plastic shelving, life swirling around it not inside.

*

When I was in 3rd grade, Mom and I spent hours driving to and from a pet store near our house. I wanted a guinea pig. Or a white rat. Or a hamster. Any companion, really.

We were innocently eyeing the gerbils when a large bird of unknown species landed on Mom’s shoulder. Her face turned bright red. So did mine.

“Excuse me!” Mom said to one of the pet shop employees. “A little help?” She motioned to her left shoulder.

“Oh!” the employee said. “Don’t worry. He’s harmless.”

Mom’s face darkened. The birds tiny feet now looked more like vicious tallons digging into her.

*

All though my childhood, a strange recurring incident persisted in my dreams. Sitting in a large bird’s nest beside tropy-sized sized eggs, a mama bird would flock down and land right on top of me, suffocating the air from my lungs, stifling me through her intuitive protection. Birds still sometimes creep their way into nightmares, grazing my head as they fly by or pecking at blurred faces.

On the streets, I jump when they near me and shoo them away.

“I hate birds,” I tell anyone remotely near.

“Ha!” they usually chuckle. “Guess you saw that Alfred Hitchcock film?”

“Terrifying. Read the book too. Totally scarred for life.”

I hate everything about them: poop on the driveway, chirping, flying Vs.

Be an individual! I want to yell to them. Find your own route forward.

*

Last time I flew home to Massachusetts, there was a small bird trapped in the terminal. He took to scurrying around near my seat, so I pulled my legs up cross-legged under me. I thought of the walk I’d just endured: past the ticket desk, through security, past several coffee and food shops, and finally, to my gate. He’d never make it all that way, back into the outside world.

“Look, Mommy! A bird,” a little boy gawked from across the aisle. The mother rolled her eyes and returned to her newspaper, patting him on the head lightly.

*

Mom recently sent me a photo of her brother Rob in Honduras during July. He traveled there with his son Dan and girlfriend Anna Victoria, whose American family has lived abroad for years.

Rob’s wife, Marilyn, died in the spring, just months before his trip.

“My whole life used to be about making plans,” I heard him tell a friend the weekend before the flight. “Now, my biggest decision is what’s for breakfast.”

He needed to get away for a while. My parents and I were at his condo in New Hampshire to celebrate the fourth and see him off. I expected him to hug me and say, “See ya soon, kiddo.” Instead, he said, “It’s going to be so humid there.” No one answered. He looked exhausted and I wanted to embrace him. I hated thinking of him on the plane alone, fiddling with a newspaper and ordering tangueray and tonics. He grabbed his luggage and waved to us–his diminished clan.

When I open Mom’s e-mail, “Pix from Honduras,” I’m pleasantly surprised: there’s Rob with a huge blue and yellow parrot resting on his arm. He’s holding his beige, floppy tackle fishing hat in his left hand and making a face as if he’s just been clucking. His eyes are half closed; the camera caught him right in the action.

Yup, I think. That’s about right. I immediately flash to that time in the pet store, Mom looking around for comfort or aid. Me, standing there like an idiot, afraid of the creature and its nails.

“Looks like an amazing trip,” Mom writes. I smile slightly, knowing the best thing about birds is that eventually, whether accompanied or solo, they fly away.

[Note: written from the prompt "seeds"]

But I do want to confess this: I have not written creative nonfiction — real gut-wrenching, thoughtful, provocative memoir — in four years. Yes, four years.

Considering it’s my genre of choice, you might find that odd. We should be writing every single day, right? Or at least every week.

And I am writing. A lot. Medical features. Freelance articles. Flash fiction and poems.

And I do write CNF occasionally. Here at the blog. In word documents that aren’t yet ready for the world’s judgmental eye. And, of course, real life sneakily negotiates its way into each fictional narrative I construct.

In Words Worth Sharing, I recently quoted Tim O’Brien:

Somebody tells you a story, let’s say, and afterward, you ask, “Is it true?” And if the answer matters, you’ve got your answer.

Nonfiction matters, so why, lately, can I focus on anything but?

I think the answer may be two-fold:

Life gets in the way of writing essays, and writing essays gets in the way of life.

What I mean by this is that I haven’t been writing CNF because I’ve been living it, tweaking each day’s observations in my head and on scraps of paper to try and find the meaning worth putting down.

Likewise, I haven’t been writing it because of this idea: much of what I’m writing can be hurtful to others, and as a result, will never see the light of day. My friend and fellow CNF-enthusiast, Kanitha, once wrote that she isn’t a good Cambodian girl who can “shut up.” I sometimes think I would benefit from that rebellion–a sense that I can and will say what I’m feeling towards other people and their actions. I can say it, and I can write it, and I can publish it. And other people can then read it and react as such.

Between the lines, and my continued obsession with truth, writing fiction and hard news pieces in the “off-season” has provided insights into CNF. Writing fiction forces us to think about details, as we imagine and create them out of thin air. Fiction necessitates considerations about foreshadowing and nuances that exist in our own lives, though often they are overlooked. News and feature writing hones wordyness down to the bare bones, strengthens flow, and spruces up leads and endings. Now, I’m applying all of these new skills as I dive into an old craft.

My writing has grown and matured more than I could ever imagine since I last jumped in–just as I’d hoped. I’m not saying it’s anywhere near perfect; there is so, so, so, so, so much work to be done. So much. But I’m pleased that in those four years of silence, I’ve pieced together enough perspective to once again write what I find to be truly satisfying and fulfilling. I cannot begin to explain how therapeutic writing one simple 900-word essay can be.

What I’m also finding is that I’m no longer that 17-year-old who fell in love with nonfiction in her 12th grade memoir class. What I seek is no longer the validation of my craft from others; what I seek is ways to grow and improve and critique and learn and even fail. I’m searching for empty hours, hoping I’m strong enough to turn off the television and use words in new, creative ways with my *free time*– even though I spend entire workdays exercising my brain through similar tasks.

It’s day four and I’ve already learned so much from Lisa Romeo‘s 4×4 personal essay/memoir course assignments and discussions with my classmates. I’m happy to be reading, writing, and conversing about nonfiction, despite my temporary sebatacle. Now it seems, I’m back in the game.

I’ve decided to revive this blog as a place for perhaps posting the writing I do in this new venture. My portfolio site is, well, some place I’d like to maintain a certain sense of professionalism; it’s on my g-mail signature for all pitches. It’s no secret to my coworkers, boss, extended family, acquaintances. In fact, I’ve gone to lengths to promote that site through social media and marketing means.

Here, I feel at comfort. I feel enclosed and safe. Perhaps the number of readers is just as extensive, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. The eyes feel like strangers, and that may be the way I wish to keep it as far as more intimate nonfiction goes.

Here, I don’t have to worry about which days of the week I post or SEO or tweeting: all of that is secondary to the actual craft itself. For September, the art will be my focus and joy. And as far as that goes, this is just a much better home for those products.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been e-mailed nearly 10 obituaries, stories of candle light vigils, and prayer groups.

Somewhere, Alyssa Martino has died. Google alerts has certainly made me aware of this. And the other Alyssa–she was 19-years-old.

For days, I’m too frightened to read the news. I stare into space, wondering about her life, her loved ones. Does her soccer team miss her strong, purposeful penalty kicks? Does her chemistry class miss her straight A’s that throw off the curve? Do her parents eat dinner alone? Has her brother been absent from school?

For the past 3 months, I’ve been, for lack of better word, spooked. In April, I watched my grandmother purse her lips and take a last breath.

I panic on planes. I can’t sit still. I fidget at work. At home. In the car. On the phone.

And yet, I can’t write it. I can’t say it aloud.

I sign into WordPress to check google analytics. My bounce rate is up to 97%. I’m confused. Then I see it:

Top Searches

1. alyssa martino - 106 Visits
2. alyssa martino death - 65 Visits
3. alyssa martino died - 25 Visits
4. death of alyssa martino - 14 Visits
5. alyssa martino dies - 8 Visits

People are searching for death, and finding me–a living, breathing 23-year-old–instead. And then, disappointed, they click away. They move on, probably thinking, “Oh, that Alyssa is very much alive. We’re not interested in her.”

But I’ve known grief. And if grief leads you here, feel free to stop and stay a while.

And to the other Alyssa, thank you for reminding me again, how precious life is. I am thinking of you and your family often.

*

For Alyssa

The color of your hair,

your eyes;

the shape of your nose,

your ears,

your body–lanky or lean;

the sound of your laugh,

your whimper,

your whisper,

I do not know.

If you are a poet,

an artist,

a math wiz,

a beautician,

a yogi,

a cook,

an actress.

If you are a best friend,

an auntie,

a niece,

or a grandaughter.

If you dream of white sand or

timbuktu

or snow angels.

If you’re ambidextrous.

If you love snickers bars or mexican food.

If you’ve ever felt

the heavyness of another

body on yours.

If you’ve lived.

You’ll notice that there is a blog on this new site which now contains all of the entries from The Pen and Paper Chronicles. I’m not sure exactly what this means for P&P. To be honest, I’m feeling a little emotionally attached, and I probably will continue to cross post any blog entries over the next couple weeks until I determine the best course of action. I’m feeling that keeping P&P as a more personal and creative blog is the way to go–utilizing the alyssacmartino blog for more professional posts that focus on the writing process and writing life. Writers, if you’ve done a site change, please weigh in on your experiences so I can make a wise decision. And add the new blog to your bookmarks and reader, per favore

Also, check out my recent essay “Finding Refuge in Giving,” over at TransitionsAbroad.com. It tied for third place in the 2010 Narrative Travel Writing Contest. (Side note: the only memorable other thing I’ve ever won is a stuffed animal corn at some artisan food fair in middle school…yup. I think it was my time.)