I don’t remember the exact search term I typed into Google. I remember the results showed an open call for Open Salon on a topic with which I was becoming overly familiar, Parenting Children With Disabilities. I frantically created an account, using a screen name and a colorful painting as an avatar because I felt the need for anonymity. I needed to be rawand I needed to be real.
That first posting received an Editor’s Pickand I thought, this is it! I have found my place. And I had--although the EP was not why. The why was here were people who responded to my storyand that’s what I needed. I needed someone to know. And there were lots of someones at Open Salon.
From a post on OS 4 years ago:
Writing gives me a home. OS has provided my home withcompany that likes to come by, chat, hold my hand, stoke the embers of a dying fire, make tea or crack open another bottle and laugh loudly with me. Tears are shed, laughter curls our toes. OS throws great parties and invites everyone to play--how good or bad a writer is does not matter. What matters most? We share the bond of writing.
I frequent other people’s homes here on OS as well. I offer my own comments, hand holding, love and support, oohs, ahhs, and the occasional snarkiness. I love my neighborhood. And I love that my neighborhood is not gatedand new people wander across my thresh-hold. Some I do not miss if I do not see them again--these I figure are like finicky cats who have sniffed at my offerings and turned tail to ramble across the street.
I credit the community that emerged for me at OS with helping me keep my bearings. Saying it saved my life is melodramatic. Saying it kept me afloat is not. As a psychologist, I don’t frequently self-disclose in my work, and the anonymity ‘mypsyche’ provided me with also gave me permission to write freely. And when people resonated with my feelings, my rawness, my fears, I could rest in the cradle of a tribe.
After the first year I pitched this story to several agents. Two out of three said, send me your stuff. Instead, I had to send my son to drug rehab and thus began a wholly new story. I put one story aside and began writing another. More words on scraps of paper, more clicking on the keyboard after my 3 minute calls with him. Pour it onto the paper, stay sane, I’d remind myself. I talked to another agent: Send it, she said. This time he came home within the week, physically damaged from his time at one of the rehab facilities. Another story began as another was scrapped.
And the other piece? I remember feeling that OS was my lifeline. Constantly checking the feed to see who had posted, who had commented. OS was a lifeline that I didn’t know I needed. Seeing the invite to join 30 other OSers in what was called “Austin Seedy Limits” stirred up a lot of memories.
Meeting 30 women--30 strong, smart, opinionated women seemed daunting--particularly because it was in my own town. Seductive, and definitely doable, but I felt I lacked a real point of reference. I admit, I felt some pressure to present the best treasures of Austin. Not only did I want to be liked, but goshdarnit, I wanted my city to be liked! Why? Because it would, in some strange fashion, validate me.
I wrote bits and pieces and snuck words onto napkins which settled, crumpled, at the bottom of my purse. I crammed words onto my computer. FinallyI learned how to stop self-censoring and just write. Just write, I’d say to myself. And I would. I would write while my son perseverated on a word or two for hours (fuck this, fuck this, fuck was his time-honored favorite). I would uh-huh and keep writing. It kept me from choking him and, frankly, that seemed like a good thing.
I’d engaged in two previous meet-ups and discovered an amazing thing: people were pretty much as they presented themselves on the page. It wasn’t like meeting a celebrity you admired and then discovering thatperson was a total narcissist. These meet-ups, these people, felt REAL.
I’ll only comment on the aftermath here.
Amazing. Everything from the love between people who’ve known one another for years, to the newfound ‘wow! I really like you’ smiles.
Amazing. The looks of recognition. The hugs of acceptance. Amazing, too, the self-selection as people settled into comfortable circles.
Amazing. You are exactly as I imagined!
Amazing. Now I get why you...
Amazing: I can’t imagine you any other way.
Amazing: So, really, you don’t know the screen name you wrote under?
Amazing: I can’t believe I didn’t know that about you!
Amazing: I knew OF you, but now I know you and wow!
Austin. Kept it weird February 7-9, 2014. Amazing.
That first posting received an Editor’s Pickand I thought, this is it! I have found my place. And I had--although the EP was not why. The why was here were people who responded to my storyand that’s what I needed. I needed someone to know. And there were lots of someones at Open Salon.
From a post on OS 4 years ago:
Writing gives me a home. OS has provided my home withcompany that likes to come by, chat, hold my hand, stoke the embers of a dying fire, make tea or crack open another bottle and laugh loudly with me. Tears are shed, laughter curls our toes. OS throws great parties and invites everyone to play--how good or bad a writer is does not matter. What matters most? We share the bond of writing.
I frequent other people’s homes here on OS as well. I offer my own comments, hand holding, love and support, oohs, ahhs, and the occasional snarkiness. I love my neighborhood. And I love that my neighborhood is not gatedand new people wander across my thresh-hold. Some I do not miss if I do not see them again--these I figure are like finicky cats who have sniffed at my offerings and turned tail to ramble across the street.
I credit the community that emerged for me at OS with helping me keep my bearings. Saying it saved my life is melodramatic. Saying it kept me afloat is not. As a psychologist, I don’t frequently self-disclose in my work, and the anonymity ‘mypsyche’ provided me with also gave me permission to write freely. And when people resonated with my feelings, my rawness, my fears, I could rest in the cradle of a tribe.
After the first year I pitched this story to several agents. Two out of three said, send me your stuff. Instead, I had to send my son to drug rehab and thus began a wholly new story. I put one story aside and began writing another. More words on scraps of paper, more clicking on the keyboard after my 3 minute calls with him. Pour it onto the paper, stay sane, I’d remind myself. I talked to another agent: Send it, she said. This time he came home within the week, physically damaged from his time at one of the rehab facilities. Another story began as another was scrapped.
And the other piece? I remember feeling that OS was my lifeline. Constantly checking the feed to see who had posted, who had commented. OS was a lifeline that I didn’t know I needed. Seeing the invite to join 30 other OSers in what was called “Austin Seedy Limits” stirred up a lot of memories.
Meeting 30 women--30 strong, smart, opinionated women seemed daunting--particularly because it was in my own town. Seductive, and definitely doable, but I felt I lacked a real point of reference. I admit, I felt some pressure to present the best treasures of Austin. Not only did I want to be liked, but goshdarnit, I wanted my city to be liked! Why? Because it would, in some strange fashion, validate me.
I wrote bits and pieces and snuck words onto napkins which settled, crumpled, at the bottom of my purse. I crammed words onto my computer. FinallyI learned how to stop self-censoring and just write. Just write, I’d say to myself. And I would. I would write while my son perseverated on a word or two for hours (fuck this, fuck this, fuck was his time-honored favorite). I would uh-huh and keep writing. It kept me from choking him and, frankly, that seemed like a good thing.
I’d engaged in two previous meet-ups and discovered an amazing thing: people were pretty much as they presented themselves on the page. It wasn’t like meeting a celebrity you admired and then discovering thatperson was a total narcissist. These meet-ups, these people, felt REAL.
I’ll only comment on the aftermath here.
Amazing. Everything from the love between people who’ve known one another for years, to the newfound ‘wow! I really like you’ smiles.
Amazing. The looks of recognition. The hugs of acceptance. Amazing, too, the self-selection as people settled into comfortable circles.
Amazing. You are exactly as I imagined!
Amazing. Now I get why you...
Amazing: I can’t imagine you any other way.
Amazing: So, really, you don’t know the screen name you wrote under?
Amazing: I can’t believe I didn’t know that about you!
Amazing: I knew OF you, but now I know you and wow!
Austin. Kept it weird February 7-9, 2014. Amazing.
