Freaky Friday

You just never know how things are going to go. Especially while at a writing conference. In Chicago.

I planned to go to a panel at noon, another at 1:30, the art museum at 3:00, dinner at 5:00, and a reception at 7:00.

Instead, I took a nap through the noon meeting, showed up for 20 minutes of the panel at 1:30, went to Buddy Legend's at 3 for a burger and to use their wifi. Instead, little writing got done but I talked to the precocious and not-at-all shy daughter of a local headlining blues singer, chatting it up with a fellow AWP attendee, and watching SNL skits with the staff after wishing one person luck on applying to Northwestern and listened to them give each other shit.

It's a strange day. I think it will only get stranger.

It is Friday the 13th after all. 

And I realize this is not only something that occurs while at a conference. This happens while writing, dating, existing, etc. And sometimes you have to look at the strange patterns that spring up in your life and try to make sense of them.

In my fiction I have a pattern: my stories involve parent-less children. Moms abandon daughters. Boys survive mom's suicide. And babies drop out of the sky, no parents to be found.

In my dating I have a pattern: guys without mothers. Some have lived through moms leaving after a divorce. One was abandoned completely. One sat in the doctor's office while his mom had an aneurism outside.

Today, being a strange Friday falling on the 13th, I am forced to examine these patterns. Just what is going on? I posed the question to a friend.

"Do you think they're looking for you to be a mother?" she asked.

"Or am I looking for an orphan?" I replied.

Both are equally disturbing. 

Really frightening when I stop to think about it. Obviously abandonment is an issue in my life. I can't deny this--it shows up in my writing, my dating, my crying tendencies during movies like The Hotel for Dogs when orphan siblings are separated. I'm not really sure yet why this issue keeps coming up in my life, having been raised by two parents married for 34 years, but if there's one thing I know about my fiction writing, the issue will eventually reveal itself. I just have to be patient and keep noticing the patterns, keep asking myself why all of this is going on.

As for the surprising pattern of planned situations turning to surprising encounters at the blues  joint down the street? That's easy. I just like to have fun.