by Laurie Wagner | Dec 1, 2013 | Blog
It wasn’t a big race, there were no prizes, I didn’t have to train or make sure I had the right outfit – – I just had to show up and be ready to run. And not even the whole 3.2 miles, mind you. I could walk it along with my 76-year-old mother and my 8-year-old nephew – who I heard got a little surly around mile #1 and sat down in protest. Hey! I didn’t like running either! The most I’d run in years had been the day before when my sister Wendy and I challenged ourselves to run 2 miles around a lake. And I’d only done that because I was scared to run a whole 5K – even if all the money was going to the Colorado flood victims. I would have rather given them the dough because the thought of hauling my middle aged body over hill and dale was enough to make me chuck. “Hell yes! I’ll run it!” I said, when when my little sister Amanda – total stud runner –invited me and everyone else in my family to run. I’m pretty competitive – I didn’t want to look like a slouch on Thanksgiving Day. No, I was going to work for my meal. Of course Amanda didn’t give two hoots who ran it; I’m pretty sure she invited us so we could watch the crew of kids she’d just begun coaching, but which ended up being one brave 7-year-old boy. Of course I didn’t actually see them running because they were way ahead of me, so I’m taking Amanda’s word for it...
by Laurie Wagner | Sep 9, 2013 | Blog
“’I should have stayed at the dance.’” That’s what I was thinking as I sat in my friend’s car. The mood was tense. Julie had insisted on leaving the dance right after Homecoming Queen was announced. She hadn’t won like she’d hoped. I had.” These are the beginning lines of my daughter’s college admission essay. She’d been trying to come up with ideas for what to write about for weeks. Like most kids, she felt the pressure to make herself look good – no, better than good – incredible – out of this world – yes, she felt she’d need to appear more amazing than she actually was in order to capture the attention of a college admissions director. But the night she came up with those lines she felt like mashed up dog meat – and there’s nothing tantalizing about that. How can one of the best nights of your life also be one of the worst? My husband and I had heard that she’d won Homecoming Queen hours before when her sister called from the dance screaming, “she won! Ruby won!” My husband and had been rebels and misfits in high school. We didn’t know from Home Coming, yet there we were bouncing up and down on the couch like we’d just won the lottery. The thing was, when Ruby dragged her sorry self home two hours later she didn’t look half as happy as we were. Her mascara had run down the sides of her cheeks, she wobbled in her high heels as she crossed the threshold of our home, her black heels scuffed, her tight...
by Laurie Wagner | Aug 28, 2013 | Blog
“Why do you work so hard?” my friend Deb asked me the other day. “You seem like you’re in such a hurry to get somewhere.” “I think I’m trying to get to a sense of rest,” I said. “Some place on the other side of all this hard work where I’ll feel calm.” “But you never get there, right?” says Deb with a sinister smile. “Um, no. There’s just more work.” Damn that Deb. She’s such a smarty pants. Welcome to my magical to-do list that mysteriously grows longer the more tasks I cross out. On the surface I’m a mass of kick back, unruly curls, but on the inside I’m a 7-armed goddess monster who squeezes more out of each day than is sanely possible. A woman who means to take care of her house, her kids, sell her classes, create new products, teach her classes, get to the gym, return emails, phone calls and about 1000 other things that I’m not even going to mention. It’s nutty, and I’m sorry if you feel sick just reading this. I’m even sorrier if you know this world all too well. On top of it, if you’re like me, you’ll cop to a deep need to make everything you do perfect, bullet proof, exceptional. And while it’s not bad to want to create and deliver good things, the anxiety that accompanies this need for perfection is killing me. So this summer I promised myself that I was going to take a break and relax. As fate would have it a juicy writing project came my way and my “free time” evaporated…poof!...
by Laurie Wagner | Jun 11, 2013 | Blog
What if I told you that it took me ten years to understand what I was teaching? It looked like I was teaching people how to write, but what I was actually doing, I realized late in the game, was teaching writers how to peel away the layers of their story and dig for something more true, more authentic and just plain honest. And while all that digging and examining is good for writing, it’s also excellent for living. When you chip away at the façade of your story, and you lay down one true word, and then the next true word you will eventually become stripped down and naked to yourself. And when you see yourself like that, there’s no turning back. You may, as many of my students have done, begin the process of changing your life. I’m a process person. I’m all about getting words onto a page; messy, ugly, imperfect, glorious words. And to do that you need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. For me, it’s not about what I’m writing or whether I like what I’m writing that’s important. That the pen inks like a river across the page, that I have the courage not to know what the next word is, or the word after that…that I keep going anyway. That’s the spirit, that’s what makes a sound turn into a song. I might only be able to hear bits at first – the merest sound of a refrain – but I’ll swirl it around in my mouth, taste it, roll it on my tongue and Wa La, I start singing. That’s...
by Laurie Wagner | Jun 2, 2013 | Blog
The note your ten-year-old writes you because she heard you crying in the bathtub. “Mommy, we love you very much. Who wouldn’t?” The way she comes in while you’re laying there in three inches of hot water; depleted, exhausted, alone, and how she tacks her little note onto the tile across from where you lay so you can see it. “Mommy, we love you very much. Who wouldn’t?” The way your skin feels right after the bath; smooth and velvety and warm. The peace of being alone in the house because your husband has taken the children out for a bike ride, and how you sit on the porch with your summer skirt on and light up that cigarette. How glad you are that you saved this little bit of tobacco for a moment like this. The big, tall, magnificent trees in your yard and the way they move in the wind. The sound of the wind. The peace of being alone; everything is going to be alright, you tell yourself. You’re going to be alright. Wondering if you could fall in love with your husband again. The possibility that the love you seek is right here, at home, with him. The quiet beauty of your ramshackle home at the end of the road, a home with no one in it except you and the dog. The way you leave the front door open for the wind. How you need the wind to keep you moving, especially now. How after the cry, and the bath, and your late afternoon glass of wine, you feel capable again. Strong. Ready. Right....
