Full Circle on my Wandering Uterus

I am sure the title of this post gave you pause.  Why is my uterus wandering?  How did it come full circle?  Why did it come full circle? What does this have to do with writing or even bon mots?

Let me reveal all.

A bit over a year ago, I received an invitation from my local celebrity friend Byron Ballard.  She asked me to submit my writing for an anthology called My Wandering Uterus.  She had commented on an article about the Victorian idea that a woman's uterus "wandered", which caused her to act "hysterical", or any code word used to describe non cookie-cutter behavior.  From that, she mused about a travel anthology called My Wandering Uterus.  I watched her develop this project with her friend Kate Laity from afar, and was honored that Byron had thought of me to submit something.

But wait. Me? Write?  I have been writing since I was about five years old.  I wrote throughout childhood, listed it as my hobby, and as an adult, dabbled here and there, mostly in journals, a few articles published sporadically.  Never had I submitted something to be published, or worked consistently to finish a writing project.  That seemed like a dream in the future.  Yet, little did Byron and Kate know that I had manifested a desire to write earlier that year.  Not just write, but meet deadlines.  My practical self thought I should start out slowly.  Just meet deadlines.  That sounded easy enough.  And so it began.

The word count daunted me, but I had a great topic. Surely I could expound on that.  I recently came back from my second trip to Ireland within a year, and my journey there had taught me much about myself. As I began to write, I began to weave my story, backtracking to my childhood, my earliest Irish memories.  I had grown up in an Irish neighborhood for a time, was dubbed "Honorary Irish" by my friends, but had never been to that country before my recent trips  How then, did a woman with a German/Portuguese background feel so connected to the Emerald Isle?

Read my essay in the book to find out.  I discovered the threads that tied my journeys all together, from childhood, to adulthood, through love and back to my heritage.  Woven throughout is my passion for freedom and how that ties in as well.  I am honored and excited that my submission was selected. In the meantime, I've begun writing more, and along with my other work (workshops, etc.), I've grouped them all together under the umbrella of the words "bon mots".  Good words in French.

I look forward to sharing my essay when the book is available.  A band of us wandering women pooled our writing to form an anthology, edited by Kate Laity, with a foreword by Byron Ballard.  What an amazing project, a great subject, and such a variety of experiences contained in this book. Details soon to follow!