I entered my first writing competition in Grade 4, submitting “My Summer Holiday” story like everyone else. 
I had implemented many of the key elements into my tale of hauling wood across the lake – a startled bat flying from the boat house foreshadowing doom, a boat overflowing with wood maintaining tension, my father hanging onto the motor as the boat sank for comic relief and my unbridled terror as I descended into the dark water for the voice – even if I had no idea what I was doing. 
I fell over backward in my chair when they announced my name as the winner in a school assembly and I was presented with an inscribed copy of Farley Mowat’s Owls in the Family. 
It remains the only contest I have won, except for a contest to describe the great taste of Hire Root Beer in which I used a nonsensical parade of ‘f’ words, including fizzy and fantastic. 
I earned an ‘Honorable Mention’ for that and a pair of radio headphones. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I might have peaked too soon.
Tag Archives: childhood
Leaving Home As a Kid
“I wandered off as a kid, just kind of left. I never wanted to run away, nothing like that, but I liked being in my own head and staying there, alone.” Och squeezed the brim of his hat between his hands, bending the thick material together. “I remember once coming home from school, pretending to sleep, just so I could miss my stop. That’s how I thought. I had to pretend to sleep and wake up in case someone was watching. It was just…I just wanted to see where the bus went. I always got off at the same stop and I didn’t know where it went. I wanted to know where it went. And so I opened my eyes like, ‘Oh, no, I missed it. What do I do now?’ And there wasn’t anything. It was all the same, streets and stores and apartments. I stared out the window as we went north. And then it was only apartment buildings, wide avenues and then empty fields. The bus came to a turnaround and the driver asked me if I was lost. I told him that I had missed my stop.”
“How old were you?” Dee asked.
“I don’t know. I think maybe Grade Three.”
“You rode the bus alone when you were eight?”
“I did the same thing on the subway another time. I went to the end of the line. I collected a transfer from every station.” I stared into the water as if he could see his small hands clutching bits of colored paper. “I was never scared or anything. I was just getting off and on the train, collecting transfers. It was so great…like magic.”
Afraid of the Sliminess Inside
I remember being afraid of the dark. 
I was afraid of being alone. I was afraid of the water, the sharks, the depth and sliminess. I remember lying in my bed, scared of my dreams, scared of what was to come, scared of things on my little body, scared I would die of something too young. 
I checked for early signs of a heart attack. I ran from wasps. I hid in tiny places I was afraid of. I didn’t want to be alone. I’m still afraid of that. And all of the other things too.
I’m older, not wiser, afraid as ever. I want to get out of that. I want to find myself, some truth, something that will make me the notion I hold inside or holds me. 
It’s a funny thing, this interior battle, wanting to be another, wiser, braver me. I play that game. And then I pretend that I don’t. I’m better than that. I’m okay with who I am. That’s what I say to myself. That’s my little self con. 
And I beat myself up and stay hiding, almost believing in my dreams, myself, but more than that, stay that kid screaming inside.