On leopard-print panties and word collapse . . .

Typing on this blank space and thinking that someone will read it (even if it is only shoppers I commandeer and pay one dollar to while browsing the Wal-Mart parking lot) causes me to "word collapse."

Word collapse is a simpler name for writer's block. Writer's block sounds so fatal that I like word collapse better. Plus, I made it up. I'm counting on the cute, made-up things I do to trap you and you and you into returning to a place where we can make up words and life and story and it will be so rich and true and real (how is that for a few abstracts in a row) that we will grow a huge community of us.

Right now, my definition of word collapse is as follows: All the words I know, all the words I have known, all the words I will know tumble into some center I call fear. Well, fear is too charged a topic to begin discussing on my first post. But you can bet that when "word collapse" happens to most writers, fear is standing behind the words (and sometimes the writer) pushing them over the edge.

When word collapse happens, I feel my toes cringe, my heart becomes arrhythmic (it believes this is a way to assure I will stop trying), and I smell the odor of every room where I blossomed as the fool. Those smells would include the greasy hamburger-and-fry smell of the Village Hut when I went on a date with Ken Hannah, my knight in shining Country Squire Station Wagon. JoAnn Ranck and I scurried to the bathroom which was about the size of the phone booth where Superman changes clothes. (Truly if he's Superman he should be able to get a better changing room in his contract.)

The two of us squished ourselves into this plywood potty room and checked in the mirror to make sure we matched, as closely as possible, those images of Cheryl Tiegs on the cover of Seventeen magazine.

Then, we urinated. That's the proper name for peeing as given to us by the beloved Mrs. Pasinger, our sixth-grade p.e. teacher, on one of those rainy days during the school year when you couldn't play kickball or badminton, but were stuck learning about menstrual flows and urination and having a talent show where girls took turns singing to a trapped dressing-room audience.

I always sang "Tammy's in Love," from the movie. I guess I finessed that song so much it became a regular request on rainy days when dressing rooms always got me down. Rhonda McMillan, who was a real gospel singer, who had a real album and who could really sing, would also tune up with a song that began, "I've been saved. I've been new born no-ow. All my life has been rearranged." Well, you get the idea. Rhonda had the best voice and musical prowess in all of Giles County maybe in all of middle Tennessee. I was jealous, but it didn't stop me from having my own mini-American Idol 35 years prior to that show's inception.

Oh my, I didn't want to ramble on this post. However, it is my posting so I can ramble if I want to. Isn't that what authenticity is about--that and finally telling the truth about my jealousy of Rhonda McMillan? I will ramble at will. I encourage you to do the same. There may be those fetid memories lurking from your sixth-grade-p.e.-dressing-room days that you've never shared. Send me your story. We could probably start a sixth-grade-p.e.-dressing-room anthology.

Now back to smells and fools. When JoAnn and I emerged from the restroom, I lounged on one of the twisting stools (not to be confused with "fools") at the counter while she and Jim, her boyfriend, and Ken stationed themselves in a booth. I was "feeling my oats" as my dad always reminded me, and was also "acting full of myself," as he always reminded me.

JoAnn's ivory-girl complexion, I noticed, turned redder and redder like she was a front burner on the stove that you just directed to high and then stared at it until the glowing coals were like a fiery bullseye.

I did not know what JoAnn was trying to tell me--maybe I was acting out too much even for her. So, I toned it down a bit. The color of her face remained turned to HIGH. She would also giggle and shake her head which perplexed me even more and she kept nodding to indicate something was wrong--maybe I had Bazooka Bubble gum stuck to my shoe.

I guess it was when I looked at my shoe for bubble gum verification that I saw my pants were unzipped and revealed my leopard-print nylon bikini panties to the Village Hut staff and patronage. Now every time I smell greasy burgers and fries, I think of the Village Hut and leopard-print panties and how I began an early pilgrimage into "acting the fool."

What you must notice here is that even though word collapse threatened this writing, I wrote anyway. Even though I remembered the greasy-hamburger smell of the location where girls go who don't zip up their panties on important dates, I wrote anyway. Even though I rambled, I wrote anyway. That's what makes my heart, right now, less arrhythmic and more smooth. Yes, the rhythm of my heart beating is smooth. I like that.

Honor the writer within, the fool within, the girl-who-forgot-to-zip-up-her-panties within, the dressing-room-singer-who-is-jealous-of-Rhonda-McMillen's-fame within. When you write past word collapse, or don't make word collapse win, you hear your favorite song in your ears cheering you to some level of writing victory. My song might be "Tammy." You know what song you'll hear.

Honor the word collapse within. It is sure to taunt you when you write. Honor it, but don't give into it. Tell it about the time you revealed your leopard-print nature to the teenage world at the Village Hut. Tell it a story. That always shuts it up. Word collapse is a sucker for a story.

kss

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Copyright 2005 Shelnutt