Pretending I'm Retired

 “I’m not from Alabama.” Or should I say “these parts.” I don’t say that, because those words don’t roll off my tongue. The kids are looking at me with confused blinking stares. I’ve made another cultural blunder and I didn’t even know it. It’s a beautiful fall day in 1993 and we’re ambling up the side of a mountain laurel trail when one asks, “Miss Allison, what’s your favorite football team?” My answer gets confused looks. Because, as anyone from Alabama knows, there are only two choices and one right answer. And I’ll give you a hint. It’s not the professional football team that won the Super Bowl in ’92. I’m from a Maryland suburb. I’m from The Washington Post and The Washington Nationals. Moving from the DC area to a rural area of Northeast Alabama, I’d traded our Nation’s Capital for the Sock Capital of the World. (Think I’m kidding? Look up Fort Payne.) And every day, it’s clear that I’m not from Alabama. I’ve never tasted okra. And I’ve never seen so many stars at ...

  I feel more friendly when I am writing, nicer to people, much more generous, also wiser.                                                          --Toni Morrison When do you become a writer? Define yourself that way? Introduce yourself at cocktail parties, swirling a glass of cabernet as you breezily mention, "Oh, I'm a writer." Well, first of all, I’d have to attend cocktail parties, which I don’t. I'm a bit of an introvert and I don’t really like wearing mascara. And second, I have a "real job." I am a teacher, which is probably the occupation I’d share at said mythical cocktail party. Do you have to be paid to define yourself as a writer? Log a certain number of hours hunched over your morning pages or...