Martha Reed is the
author of the John and Sarah Jarad Nantucket Mystery series. This is her first
post for WWK since joining our staff last year. Welcome, Martha.
E. B. Davis
I grew up in north central Ohio, where the lake effect winters
are cruel and the snow gets waist deep. Being more of a lizard lazing on a hot
rock type of personality, I spent six months a year buried in books to escape
the bone-cracking climate. The grade school librarian became my best friend.
I’m dating myself, but she put me to work sorting Dewey Decimal System cards
for the catalog and manually revising the date on the return slip rubber time stamp.
It was a heavy responsibility for a fifth grader, but I loved it.
On weekends, I created imaginary worlds. I distinctly
remember sitting at my mother’s desk and writing a story about captaining a
clipper ship. To this day I have no idea why or even how that particular idea
generated. Growing up in Middle America, I certainly had no idea of ever living
a coastal life.
Life moved on, and I made my choices. Occasionally, when I
was forced to do so by random chance, I experienced a burst of creative
possibility and imagined an alternate reality or choice, but it never occurred
to me to actually use my imagination as a “life changing” tool. I went about imagining
all of these life-changing possibilities for my characters, and I never
considered using it on myself.
Decades passed, and then - suddenly - I neared retirement
age. I’d taken care of the kids, and my parents, and funding my 401(k). What was my next personal plot point going
to be?
I knew I wanted to live somewhere warmer; that was a given.
I considered North Carolina. Charlotte was trendy and fun, but too small. Charleston,
SC was charming, but too expensive. I crossed another state line and toured
Savannah, but no. Still not right.
And then my writer’s life offered up an idea. On Day Two of
Bouchercon 2018 in St. Petersburg, Florida, I stepped out of the gorgeous Vinoy
hotel for a breath of fresh air, since the crime fiction authors were stacked three deep at the bar and the oxygen supply was running low. I stood in the
park studying the marina, a salty breeze tickled my ears, and it clicked.
This. This is where I
want to live.
My next thought was: ‘I’ll move here when I retire.’ And the
little voice inside my head that I’ve been trained to listen to, said: Why wait? If this is what you really want,
do it now.
I alternated between hope, wonder, and fear on the ride
back to Pittsburgh. I want to do this. Do
I dare? I gave the idea a solid week to burn off. You know the drill. Of course I want to move to St. Pete! I had
a great time. It’s vacation head. I wasn’t sure I trusted the feeling. I
wasn’t sure I trusted myself.
It didn’t burn off. So then, I thought: Okay. How do I do this? How do I uproot my whole life, because I’ve
never ever imagined that my Book of Life would have a Florida chapter in it?
And my imagination stepped in. Instead of focusing on why it
couldn’t happen, I started to imagine how it could. I needed a job; LinkedIn
helped me find one. I needed a place to live; AirBnB offered weekly rental
apartments until I got a permanent address. I needed a car. Crown Honda was
delighted to lease me one.
For every objection that I raised, for every roadblock I
built, my wily imagination found a way to prop the door open, if I was bold
enough to step through. On January 7th, I celebrated my one-year anniversary of
St. Pete Gulf Coast living. It’s been splendid.
Turnabout is fair play. My imagination is now challenging me
to use this new attitude on my writing. Each morning when I sit down to my
manuscript, I’m pushing my imagination into deeper and darker possibilities,
pursuing my quest for the light, trying to make the story more fearlessly
meaningful. I used to work at making things pretty. Now I want to make them
true. I love what I see coming up in my editing draft, and I’m hoping my
readers will love the new me, too.
What’s the short answer? Sometimes, the only person stopping
you, is you.
Do you have a similar tale to tell?
