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Jennifer DiCamillo, 1st place winner in Writer's Fanfare Contest, is an award-winning writer, playwright, and poet. In the last two years, she has won over 70 writing awards. Her works have been published in: Grist, Turquoise Feathers, Museletter, Ozarks Monthly, The Storyteller, The Binnacle, The Poison Pen, Whispers of Inspiration, and Cup of Comfort for Women in Love. She lives in Highlandville, Missouri.
My Daughter's Closed Eyes
There are some who suspect that I write to escape my five kids. Not so. I write to open their eyes, to give them vistas they never knew they were missing. To send them to the moon, or a fantasy land, or back in time. And maybe that returns a little peace to my soul. Do you see what I am saying?
I plot to take them out.
Out to place they could never go otherwise. There is more to this world, and living, than the blended background of life that we tune out.
What is it about children?
Is it the way they challenge us outright by ignoring everything around them? The way they insist on making us see things their way?
My biggest challenge, and greatest accomplishment in this life, has been getting a clue to their skew and making them see things my way, or, as I call it--conveying images to the vision impaired. Painting vibrant, emotion-chocked--poetic literature--to the deaf, dumb, and blind.
That said, I must admit that I learned more about writing from my kids than anywhere else. Through them, I found a definition to "what's important". They taught me humor, whole truths, and obscure trivia--and how those small details make the world come alive. They complained at bad endings to bedtimes stories, and demanded well-rounded heroes that had good motivations.
But more, they elasticized my imagination and pried open my eyelids. I discovered the blank canvasses and empty WORD documents that existed, dusty, inside my brain, and the brush of the artist hidden there, too.
I realize, now, that I am a painter of worlds and I give that credit to my oldest daughter. She read Helen Keller's story during sixth grade, and became enamored with the desire to experience hidden nuances of the mundane. For years, off and on, we, as a family, went through her "Pretend I'm Helen" phases.
She bumped blindly around home and school, asking family and friends to lead her places, and describe the things and textures of our everyday world: what the people we met were wearing, carrying, the expressions on their faces while they spoke. She recalled nuances that we hadn't picked up on: scents, inflections. Everything became tactile.
Life took on depth.
Colorful explanations of the meals served, and even outfits I wore--had me self-consciously working on my presentation. My other children became snitches, saying things like, "I know you can't see this, but so-and-so has their finger up their nose by a half inch." Vignette reality. I'm sure that little "taste of Helen" taught me more about visualing, and encapsulating, my surroundings than anything else.
Picture my Italian beauty: voluptuous, olive-skinned, dark-haired, black-eyed, wearing chic fashion, and upscale fragrance--swatting gnats, sipping tea in a lawn chair on the patio beside me, her antithesis--a pale, freckled, overweight, flat-haired, make-up-less mother of five, worn-out from house cleaning, smelling way too much like cleansers, in jeans, t-shirt and old tennis shoes.
She sighs, "The sunset is absolutely awesome."
Then promptly, she closes her eyes, and reaches, fumbling for my bare arm, smoothing it once with cold fingers, and begging, she squeezes. "Describe it for me, Mom."
Tired, I groan. I ache. I lean back, look up at the sky, inhale, and my heard melts--savoring her touch, the moment, the sweet smile of joyful expectancy on her face.
Mona Lisa with her eyes closed. She urges, "Come on. I'm waiting."
I looked to the western sky. Sunset in Death Valley is...breathtaking, a sweep of cotton candy clouds banking a blob of flaming rays over purpled mountains.
Lazy, I offered up, "Pastel fluff over majestic peaks?"
There's no cheating her. She peeks at it with one eye, then at me the same way, insisting with a frown, "Come on, you can do better than that. I'm blind, and even I know you haven't done it justice."
I had to laugh, and do it better.
All I can say is--teasing tickles please people. Remembering that moment always makes me smile. It's what life is all about, loving the seconds as they pass.
Creating snapshots filled with emotion.
It's all about imagery, isn't it? Who makes us see and feel? And how? From each character in our life, we absorb point of view--focusing, skewing. Sensory words give impact. Depth of emotion is only relayed when words are calculated, and clutter cleaned up. Ass a gasp, a sigh, a whisper, a pause--and we are there.
"What color is that?" My daughter was relentless.
And, I'm here to tell you, you can squint all you want, it doesn't make better descriptive words appear. Peruse color charts, like I did. Saying a sunrise is orange, rather than a blazing "neon mellow, or cantaloupe" dawn--is...laziness, elementary. Sundown, where the sun simple goes down, or gets darker, is so blah compared to a periwinkle dusk, star-studded twilight descending, or a nightshade being drawn. Find the magic in the picture. Do it justice!
And the other senses? He touched her becomes enthralling when the back of his fingers skim over her flesh. Goose bumps? Bad fish are more disgusting when the rot of three days' decomposing in sweltering humidity, feeding maggots, rises up with milling flies.
Wrinkled noses? Triumph, you see.
I have brought you through your Helen Keller phase. And, like little children, you can wonder anew at what you'd call that next sunset...or bean...or squishy stuff between your toes. Whatever it is, you'll be seeing it through my daughter's closed eyes.