making the news

one of these was mine


By sheer coincidence (and the death of a friend), my father has recently put me back in touch with someone I used to work with -- in my very first job as a college graduate. It was her job that I took, as a matter of fact (she got a promotion but kept the same desk, right next to mine), so it fell to her to show me the ropes, introduce me around, and buy me a little of the credibility that I would need with key sources. I could never have filled her shoes, and after the first week or so on the beat, I didn’t even want to. I thought I could be a writer, but I realized quickly that I wasn’t cut out for being a reporter.

And yet I was one; I was a photographer, too. I wrote some stories I am still proud of -- and did a lot of things in my youth and arrogance of which I am not. Many things changed for me in that year.

And many more have changed since. It would be so easy to sum it all up in a neat, coherent paragraph, to write a life for myself of drama and adventure in a foreign country. I’ve done it before, so many times. It’s a story that never gets stale. So why is it easier for me at this moment to write this post to total strangers than it is to write that email to her? I was a consummate actress in those days. I worked what I had. Maybe I should try it again.