Fifty-Fifty

Last month my husband Shawn and I turned fifty. A half century lived and five short years until the AARP mails us our membership cards and we qualify for the senior dinner special at Golden Corral (not that I would ever use it). Our youngest child is rapidly approaching seventeen and I can see the light at the end of the first phase of parenting tunnel. I anticipate more travel and more time to spend on my writing.

To mark this occasion I decided to write a poem. But not only that—I wrote it in order to submit it to an online magazine—Quantum Fairy Tales—a speculative fiction ezine. They had issues a call for short form fiction and poetry and I had an idea—an image really—that I thought would work. The fact that I had submitted exactly one story before, a short Christmas story I had written for my kids about how a sheep dog leads the shepherds to the Christ child which Deseret Book politely rejected, did not deter me. And whether they accepted it or not, I am determined to push myself out of my comfort zone as a writer and take more chances.  Which is one of the things this poem is about.

And guess what? They published it!  Please click on Fifty-Fifty to read the poem. Thank you, Quantum Fairy Tales!

I am a firm believer in readers contributing to a story or poem. We each bring our own experiences into how we interpret a poem or story. I feel a creative work exists in the space between the author and the reader, who each must invest creative energy to bring it to life. That being said, I also enjoy reading what authors have to say about their creations and about the hows and whys and whats of the creative process of my favorite authors.  

In that spirit, I want to share with you what I had in mind when I wrote this poem.

As I said before, I had an idea to write a poem for Shawn and my fiftieth birthdays. I often write poems for significant events or as gifts for a friend. That is the initial impetus behind this poem—a gift for my husband, for myself.

Every year I plan a non-birthday adult costume party during the week leading up to Halloween (and our birthdays). This year the theme was superheroes. In addition, our family went to Disney World the week of Oct 16 and for the first time were going to go to the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. I had chosen our family costumes—The Incredibles.

 

 This movie is my husband’s favorite Pixar film because it is about a dad trying to be super—not just as a superhero but more importantly as a husband and father. I also made a thirty-eight song mix CD set to give out as party favors. (If you would like the playlist, send me an email and I will send it to you.)

 You could say I had superheroes on the brain big time.

As I mused on that theme, an image came into focus: two superheroes—a man and a woman dressed in their super costumes standing on a precipice, a unruly mob coming up behind them and a choice to make—to jump and risk a fall or to turn and face certain death. The superheroes were Shawn and I. The title of the poem refers not only our ages, but also to this choice—this chance.  

The conflict with the mob was real. Only the mob was an angry teen daughter and her crazy and abusive boyfriend. The cliff was deciding to send her away—to take a chance, leaping head first into the unknown rather than facing the certainty of disaster if we did nothing. Maybe just maybe things would work out. Maybe we could all find the help we needed.  

When we went to pick my daughter up from wilderness, we gathered in a room with the other parents and teens who had finished the program. We sat in a circle and each teen was given a wooden pendant with a wing burned into the front.

We were all meant to fly.

Life inevitably brings challenges and hard choices and no guarantees that things will work out the way we hope. Take a chance anyway. Fifty-fifty may be as good as the odds may ever get. Take the chance anyway. We may try and fall flat on our face. Take a chance anyway.

The only real failure is doing nothing; it is not entering the race, not finishing last. Taking a chance bring something more precious than victory; it brings experience, compassion, understanding, resolve, patience, ingenuity, persistence. It is valuable beyond measure. It is the making of all great men and women.

This poem is about taking those chances. To striving. To making that leap into the unknown.

Join me. We will fly. Even if it is only on the way to the ground.