I don’t know why that thought popped into my head that morning in the shower.
I wasn’t thinking about my book in particular. In fact, i was zigzagging though a never-ending mental checklist of all the mundane task i had to complete once I got to work.
At the time, I was toiling as the executive assistant for an uber prolific media maverick and I was running 15 minutes late as usual.
I never meant to be tardy. Every day planned to be on time, actually. But I always seemed to lose 15 minutes between the snooze button and the shower.
That day, it was more of the same… Except for that pesky voice echoing through my ears, eerily sounding like my scrappy Grandma Margaret.
In that instant, it became crystal clear to me: The way into the story that had eluded me for the past three years was not through my no-nonsense matriarch great-grandmother, but through her stubborn black sheep child.
A slave to logic, I had it in my head that the life-inspired trilogy of my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had to begin with my granny. And when that didn’t work, I shoved the story to the back of my consciousness and concentrated on the responsible pursuit of more important things, i.e. food and shelter.
But what I failed to realize – as my late grandmother so eloquently drilled into my ears that fateful morning – was that the beginning ain’t always the beginning.
My grandmother, although not first in line in my maternal trinity, was the driving force that changed the direction of my entire family. Had she made other choices or walked a different path, i may have never existed.
She was the catalyst. The beginning. My way in!
Late as hell for work, I stumbled out of the shower and started writing.
monice mitchell simms 