Sunday was a bad day, sick-wise. Most days, I’ll wake up and feel okay, until I eat something. But Sunday was one of those days where I started out feeling just blah, and I knew it would only get worse. I let the dogs out, ate some sort of non-descript “food,” pulled my hood over my head and went back to bed.
As they are prone to do, my children continued to function in and around the house. They came in to ask if they could have snacks and watch tv, they fought about ridiculous minutia, Becca needed her hair done, Ben played a loud game of inside basketball, and, eventually, it was time to try and eat something else. Everyone was seated around the kitchen table, when we heard the garage storm door creak open.
“Who the heck is that?” we all wondered aloud. We looked around the table--WE were all there. Who would be wandering into our house?
“It’s Mrs. Bur!” the Littles yelled before I could even see her. Thank God it was just my best friend, because I looked a fright.
“I just have to pee!” she yelled, and disappeared into the guest bathroom in our laundry room. We all laughed, and it pleased me to know my friend knows she’s welcome to come on in, run to our bathroom, and make herself at home. If you don’t have a lot of family around you, you have to make “framily”--friends who feel as close as family. For the past eight years we’ve been lucky to count the Burs as part of our framily.
“I was in Gaylord with my mom, and, you know me,” Doniel explained when she exited the bathroom, “I can’t make it all the way to Cheboygan without a bathroom stop!” I came into the laundry room to give her a hug and a ‘sick report,’ and she said, “Well, come on out here. You need to talk to my mom. She’s your biggest fan.”
My WHAT? My biggest fan? When I write these columns, it’s like I’m sitting across from Doniel at my kitchen table, just chit-chatting about whatever is going on in my mind. When I offered to be a “guest columnist,” all I was really thinking was that I needed to get my name in publication so that, if I ever do try to publish my novel, I’ve got something that shows I’ve been writing. I never really thought about people reading my columns, let alone being my fans!
Despite the fact that I looked like a bad impersonation of the Russian fighter from Rocky IV (spiked up hair, gray hooded sweatshirt), I did “come on out” to Doniel’s van to see her mom. Mrs. Crocker gushed about how my columns were her favorite, and how she tells all the other girls at work, “I get to read Laura’s column first!” After they’ve all read it, she cuts it out and mails it to someone else to enjoy! “Laura,” Mrs. Crocker said, “I can just picture all these things and it’s like I’m right there with you!”
Of course Ben came out, shirtless, bouncing a basketball and spouting facts like a trivia game. Becca was carrying two of her babies and hid behind me, feigning shyness toward her own Godmother, who she hugs every day at school. Mrs. Crocker said it was like stepping into one of my columns. “Welcome to my world!” I said.
When I was a little girl, I’d spend a week here and there in the summer at my grandparents’ farm, and one of my favorite things to do was to make a newspaper using my grandpa’s typewriter. I called it “Hendricks News” and I’d report on hay bales or calves or canning or visits from my Great Aunt Sylvie. I made crosswords and drew pictures with captions. It felt very real and important at the time, and I thought, “This would be the coolest job.” As I got older, though, fiction became my true love, and the dream of newspapers slid out of the way for plans for novels and book tours and character talks. Writing memoir is scary; if people don’t like it, does it mean they don’t like you? I suppose last Sunday made me feel the converse is true: if people like my articles, they must like me. I know I’m enjoying writing them, though it’s a whole different thought process than what I’ve done before. And I’m glad to know Mrs. Crocker is out there, anxiously awaiting, reading, and sharing. I’ve never had a fan before.
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