Dreams of My Russian Summers

Like a lot of little girls, I dreamed of being a school teacher one day. Unlike them, I also envisioned myself as a Russian ballerina and an over-the-road trucker. (There’s a bed in the truck, so you’re essentially camping for a living, hands-down the coolest job.)

In high school, I came to my senses and decided to be a writer. This was by far my most challenging goal. I’m not saying teaching is easy, but you start by getting a license, which is at least straightforward. Russian ballerina? Either you’re Russian, or you’re not. Over-the-road trucker also requires a test and license, so you pass and get in or fail and move on.

Becoming a writer is imprecise. There are courses in writing and degrees in English; someone can teach you to spell and keep your participles from dangling in public. However, I know of no test to qualify a writer. I guess you could judge how many people like your work, but what’s the magic number? (Subtract Mom and Grandma; they’d read the back of a cereal box if you said you wrote it.) In the end, I supposed I’d just wake up one day and know I made it. 

At the outset, you might not have liked my work. The poetry I handed in as a freshman was predictable and a little weepy, and my sophomore essay about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, preachy. My senior paper on fossil fuels got better, and then I won the right to give a speech at graduation. Everyone in senior English wrote an essay, and we all voted who should get the honor of sharing it at commencement. Competition was stiff, but I came out on top. (Not something you could say for any of my athletic endeavors of the same period.)

I departed high school with a note from Mrs. Collins, my senior English teacher. She wrote, “You have a gift — writing! I expect to see your published works soon! Keep working hard.”

Then college happened. I met classmates whose writing talent was so abundant it felt gratuitous. I dropped my first English course after one class, scared out of my mind, and took environmental studies courses where I felt more at ease. Even working at the college newspaper, I mostly checked others’ work for errors. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communication, of which I was proud. But I didn’t think it would open the door to being a writer, maybe unsigned public relations stories if I were lucky.

Then life happened. I wrote unsigned public relations stories for a year and liked it anyway since they promoted a nonprofit in which I believed. I got married and moved to a place where I wasn’t sure I’d get a full-time job in anything, let alone in writing. I answered phone calls from disgruntled candy consumers for five months before being plucked from my misery by the publisher of one Jackson County Pilot.

Now I’m a writer, and people buy my stuff. I even won two awards — best arts and entertainment story and second-best business story among same-sized newspapers in Minnesota, according to the Minnesota Newspaper Association. 

With that first-place plaque in hand, I suddenly woke up and knew I made it. 

I believe a thank-you is in order, to Mrs. Collins, who predicted all those years before what it took an entire association of people to make me realize: I can write if I keep working hard.

This column appeared in the Jan. 31 Jackson County Pilot as "Waking up and realizing dream of writing came true after all." Read all my columns in their entirety on the Jackson County Pilot website.

P.S. Blog title is a book title - read it!