mothers on the verge

I can’t really say Clay taught me to write. I can say Clay taught me to listen. He taught me to listen for details. The way someone spoke. How they moved. And then, of course, the most important thing — what did I think it meant. And for that, I still had to listen. I had to listen to me. Clay listened to me. I came to writing late. Not late as in late. But late enough that I’d clocked a few years already in a career that I knew was not where I wanted to go. Even my parents didn’t really believe I had this writing bug in me. But Clay never acted as if I may or may not make it. He just accepted that this was what I was going to do. What I, as far as he was concerned, was already doing. And so even in a classroom he would growl. “SIT DOWN.” He barked after one particularly bad reading I gave of a story that meant nothing. Even after reading three sentences I knew it meant nothing. It rambled. It veered. It careened. Until finally Clay had enough sense to make it stop. “What’s the headlin...