He stole my heart even before birth. I have been so excited to meet him. To hold him.
Julien and me. Together forever.
I learned of him last September.
As the pandemic wore on well into its second year, we were all weary of daily life. Chef Boy ‘R Mine, however, had taken a job offer in his dream city of Chicago and was there scouting out apartments when he called me. His life was dynamic and moving forward. He had married the love of his life two years earlier. I could hear him breathing a little heavy as he walked, fast as always, the streets of Chi-Town.
I can’t remember how he led up to it, but something like “So, I’ve got the news.” And then, “Vanessa is pregnant.”
If you had told me when I attended my first conference in 2018 that I would be presenting at the conference four years later, I would have scoffed.
But here I am.
It was heaps of fun. Really. More fun than a box of puppies. I love this conference and it was so rewarding to contribute to it. I am grateful to the organizers for allowing me to participate. I cannot wait for next year. If you want more information on the organization and the conference you can find it here.
I’m working on the final proofreading of the Museum of the American Military Family’s book, E Pluribus Unum: GRAICE Under Pressure (Gender, Religion, rAce, Identity, Culture, and Ethnicity in the Military/Family.) As one of two Writers-in-Residence for the museum, I have been heavily involved with this book since January of 2021. You can learn more about the museum here.
I just got my grubby hands on the proof. Oh my. I am so proud to be a part of this project. The book is chock full of essays (11 of them are mine), photos, and quotes from survey responses that gave the book structure. The survey respondents ranged from age 9 to 92. There is even a statistical analysis and report from two anthropologists. We did it proud!
The first essay I wrote was on Identity. I also made it into a digital story which you can watch now.
The walk down Memory Lane that I took while writing my essays was by far the best time I had while experiencing the Long COVID symptom of extreme fatigue. I tired very easily and slept a lot. I had dream after dream of my deceased father, my childhood, and my experiences of the GRAICES.
That walk and a promise I made to myself finally spurred me on to begin writing a memoir based on my experiences as a brat during the Vietnam War. The memoir is a labor of love and tears. I’m referring to it as a collage–it will hold traditional memoir fare, but also short stories and poetry I have written, excerpts from my father’s letters home during his four tours as well as parts from his memoir, Expendables: Vietnam Memoir. There may even be a recipe or two.
My identity is all kinds of wrapped around my experience as a military brat. In one of my essays, I ponder how it was that the first 14 years of my life so marked me that all these years later (I’m 62), I still think of myself as a military brat.
E Pluribus Unum: GRAICE Under Pressure will be printed soon and available for purchase.
I have eight more months left in my term as Writer-in-Residence and we are already underway with the next project. I hope it proves to be as much fun as this one. I would happily serve another two-year term, but I don’t think it works like that.
W. Va. Fur and Root 