TheBanyanTree: BRETTA*S TELL-ALL DAY

[Sharon Mack]

BRETTA'S TELL-ALL DAY (Written from a prompt from one of my other workshops)

Bretta was tired.  She had joined this workshop in the hopes that it would give her energy and inspiration.  She'd hit a block.  It was a big one.  She felt as though she couldn't write a check if she had to.  It made her weary just to think about it.

Now she was here.  The all encompassing, we can fix it workshop.   It was during the Personal and Professional Weekend at the local community college.  Writing was her choice of profession.  She almost laughed aloud.  Writing*yeah, after the kids were in bed, the laundry done and the dishes washed.  Writing after Thomas ran her around on Saturday errands and Sunday dinner for the in-laws.  HA!  Writing.

But she was here wasn't she?  That was a start.  When she was young she used to sit at the typewriter for endless hours, pouring out poems and stories.  They never seemed to stop.  Even when work and class schedules in college threatened to cut off her time, she found a way, sometimes sitting into the wee hours of the morning.  A little pot; a little wine always opened up the door of inspiration if she was really stuck.  Now she could finish a fifth of scotch and all she did was end up asleep on the sofa with kids screaming her awake the next morning and a headache that banged away any hope for a story or a poem.  Besides, she couldn't rely on that.  She'd end up an alcoholic.

After the initial introduction, a survey was handed out.  They were asked to fill it out as completely as possible.  It was suppose to help them find out why their creative life had slowed down.  Bretta looked it over.  Nothing seemed to fit.  As she looked around the room she saw everyone hunched over busily writing.  She could almost picture them licking the end of their stubby lead pencils with chewed erasers.  They reminded her of elementary school, when writing each letter was a chore and needed the utmost of concentration.

She picked up her pen.   Hmmmm?  First section.  Name.  That was easy enough.  She wrote it out clean and neat, Bretta Ivry.  They didn't ask for her address.  They asked for her "environment (where you work/live)."  She almost laughed aloud.

Where do you live? (She wrote her address).  What is wrong with where you live? Now that would take a million years*.a story in itself.  Get a grip she told herself, just answer the question.  She wrote, "Too small, too many people.   No amenities."  Next question, "Where do you want to live?"  She wrote without thinking, "Anywhere quiet."  The next question was startling, "When WILL you move?"  

When hell freezes over, she thought.  She left it blank.

The next section was: "Relationships: The People You Live With."  First question, "With whom are you living?"  She wrote out Thomas's name and added in parenthesis, my husband and then listed her three children.  "Is it a positive relationship?"  They only gave you, yes or no.  You had to check one.  She didn't check any.  "Rate your relationship from 1-10."  She wrote down a 5, erased it and put 7.  Thomas was a good guy.  He meant well.  He just never really considered her a separate person.  He always treated her like an extension of himself.  He wasn't mean-spirited about it.  It was just that he assumed that's what a "team" meant and they were a "team" in his eyes.  Was that so bad?  Was he an awful person for that?  It's not like she ever complained.

List four things, which frustrate you with your relationship.  There were four small lines after this.  She decided to put key words down: individuality, privacy, friend or wife, sex or not.  

The next section was "Fears."  List four fears the paper said.  This one had longer lines.  Never being me, never being free until I'm too old to care, being a bad wife, being a bad mother.  There!  That was it in a nutshell.

But the final portion was an awakener.  It was called "Role Playing-Being Someone Else."  That's what she wanted*to be someone else.  First question, who are you today?  Bretta Ivry she wrote hesitatingly.  She wondered.  Was she Bretta Ivry or some facsimile, thereof?  Had she become the Bretta that everyone had wanted her to be?  The Bretta that everyone expected?  She went on.

Who do you think you are supposed to be?  Now she was writing even more slowly.  "I think," she wrote, "that I am suppose to be who I was meant to be.  A writer was always my dream and my goal until real life interfered.  I let that happen.  I should be my own person and find a balance between my dream and reality.  I should be me."

Who are you expected to be?  She wrote, "Quiet, obedient, a wife, a mother, a best friend, a sex partner, a problem solver, a maid, a medicine woman, a taxi service and always available for others needs."

Who do you want to be?  She wrote large and heavy.  "Bretta Ivry.  Balanced and secure in the knowledge that I am doing what is best for my family but most of all, to do what is best for me.  I want to be a writer most of all.  I want to use my mind and be creative.  To tell the world a story they've never heard before."

The release was small at first but as she read the survey over, she knew that some small thing had given way.  She felt a positive tug at the block and was glad it was opening up.  She breathed deeply and smiled at herself.  She would write.  She would do it soon.  She was excited and sure that she was about to learn many new things about herself.  The key was there she just had to find the keyhole and turn it gently to the right.