I was born to a small town, no more than a wide spot in the road between corn fields, cattle yards, hog confinements, and bean rows. With a population of very few, we all still managed to argue enough to warrant dividing our crumbling, half-empty schools into Protestant and Catholic. That’s how it was back in the day among second-generation immigrants to the Midwest. We brought our culture, farming skills, work ethic, and prejudices with us. And passed them down.
The rivalry between the two flailing schools was bitter—violent, even. We weren’t friends, God forbid (He actually did) that we date, and with so few kids we could barely field a team in any sport, but we couldn’t possibly be on the same team. No, we had to play each other.
However, on very rare occasions, and only with proper offerings to respective gods, and maybe a little smudging, the Protestant kids would walk the great divide between our two worlds (about two blocks) to attend shop class. Because, well, they had a shop. Carpenter, duh. And here, under the wooden ruler of the nuns, is where I internalized one of the greatest lessons of my life:
“Children, you only have so many breaths in this life. It is preordained. Therefore, every time you swear, you’re shortening your life. And for what?”
Good grief, I’ve never forgotten it. Not that part about predetermination. If I believed that crap I wouldn’t have…well, not here. At any rate, can you just see the little kid AJ trying to hold her breath as much as possible as she walked back from the Nuns of Eternal Breathlessness? I was confused, traumatized, light-headed, but I suppose, seeing God.
I didn’t stop swearing either. I just postponed starting but believe you me, when I stepped out into the world on my own, I made up for lost time. Every word, a little death but for what, you ask? To feel alive! Goodness, you should have heard me last night during the Bears game. I’ll be lucky to live to retirement. It’s all nonsense, of course, as though we were committing suicide by swearing. Wait! Now there’s an essay! Rats, not here.
Still, that blankety-blank worm tunneled deep in my subconscious with a child’s misconstrued fears. I came to believe that any spoken word shortens our lives. Imagine that, an Economy of Silence, a Breath Tax, The Last Word. A little girl trying to hold her tongue on penalty of death. Wow, that took some therapy.
But, alas, I’ve rebelled with a vengeance. I’m a writer, prolific, published, and distributed around the world, and I do it again and again, week after week, month over month, year on year without remorse. Sure, there is a certain whisper of truth in what the nuns felt justified in saying to a room full of little kids. Imagining, typing, narrating, and navigating tales of other worlds is frankly exhausting.
I write almost every day until the ink simply runs out. I push back from my desk when I am out of ideas, out of tolerance for edits and rearrangements, but mostly, out of words. In that way, maybe I am shortening my life, but here’s where the nuns got the math wrong. My life, my earned skills, my creativity, my voice gives so much back that I’m pretty sure I’m going to live forever. I need to, if I have any hope of putting all my ideas down on paper, or canvas, or into song.
And speaking of voice, I studied classical voice for years. Try to square that circle in the mind of a young adult. Gives new meaning to breath support if you’re wondering when “Amen” is actually your last word. Good grief! What poppycock! Then again, maybe I type because I’m afraid to breathe the words. But before you think the nuns won, know that I rebel again as now I’m narrating my books for audiobooks. A million words! Take that, you…you…mean ol’ nuns!
The image is of a broken sewer line out in the yard under the brick sidewalk. Plumbing is well-understood as the origin of all human swearing.
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