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Memoirs of a non-anonymous columnist
By Deborah Taylor-Hollis
I've been writing this biweekly column for almost seven years now, and, as such, life has changed a bit for our family. When I first began writing about life around me, my son was just turning 1 year old. I was comfortable as a stay-at-home mom, and I spent a great deal of time talking to people I met in the neighborhood, as their PTA buddy, friend, customer or co-worker. People talked to me openly, easily and without reservations.
Then I took over this space from my longtime friend and neighbor Corinne Asturias when she became managing editor of Metro and I began writing about us all. I documented the lack of music and art at our local elementary school, and highlighted local shopkeepers I interacted with regularly. I wrote about the street cleaners and children, charity and Chablis tasting. I began to feel like Jessica Fletcher, Angela Lansbury's writer character on Murder She Wrote. Willow Glen became my very own version of "Cabot Cove" without the pond.
The first time I knew that writing for the paper had changed our lives was at a street fair several years ago. I was out with the family as usual, listening to music, gabbing, shopping, and we had just gotten our dinner. I had just dived in to a huge plate of Chinese food, with a mouthful of sweet and sour pork (most of it dribbling down my chin), I heard a voice in my ear.
"Oh, Deborah, I just love your writing and wanted to tell you how much your last piece meant to me," this nice woman yelled in my ear. She was about 3 centimeters from the sputtering mess in my mouth, and I instinctively tried to respond--without thinking--and began to choke on all that gooey pork. My eyes began to water, I gagged a bit, and all the while this nice lady kept showering me with praise for my column.
Still, I choked down that oversized bite and gave her a hug. Even a near death experience is a small price to pay for unfettered adoration. As a writer, I can't get enough.
And that is the most basic change for me: recognition and contact on the streets. There is something unnerving about having people begin conversations with you out of thin air, but even more difficult is when they address you by name when they begin.
When this happens, I invariably smile and start searching my mental rolodex of names and faces we all keep in our cerebral cortex. I stand there, trying to place this nice face: Is this someone from work? Someone from my old work? One of the relatives of the nice elderly lady down the block from me? Oh, a PTA mom? Nope, maybe she's from church? Lets see, oh--this must be my old four-square partner from second grade! The process usually runs indefinitely until the "Oh, my column" answer hits me. Like a spinning roulette wheel, my brain slows to a clicking stop and I begin to relate to this nice person, without inviting them back to the house for dinner and to catch up with my Dad and me on old times in the neighborhood.
I have gotten quite comfortable with these "instant karma" moments, even when the speaker begins the conversation with something like, "Hey, you're that writer lady from the paper. You were so full of it last week when you wrote...."
Even in criticism, I am such a ham that I am pleased to be recognized for my work. It takes a special kind of ego to do this.
Unfortunately, it is hard on my family and friends. Many of them no longer want to accompany me on the streets of The Glen anymore, because they don't like being accosted while I try to hash out a homework schedule with my son's teacher. I have 7-year-old yammering in one ear about how hard something is, and in the other ear I have his teacher telling me "and you know he just isn't working up to his potential."
If it's not that, it's "And I am so glad I caught up with you because I need to have you write about this problem with my cousin and his washing machine after it broke down--now it was out of warranty, but it should have lasted more than four years, don't you think?"
Seven years later, I still have strangers talking to me, but the casual interactions with friends and family have changed. Now, people close to me actually stop me in mid-sentence and say, with fear in their eyes, "You won't write about this, will you?" And no one tells me about their dates, or their kids' embarrassing moments, anymore. After seven years, they all have learned that no one is immune from instant celebrity in the local paper.
Accost Deborah Taylor-Hollis via email at DTHOLLIS@metronews.com.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
