I remember it well.
The day I went to work for a newspaper.
My youngest child had just gone off to kindergarten, dressed adorably in a little orange outfit with a brown lion on the front. Dejectedly, I cleaned up the messy and empty kitchen, put away the discarded toys and sniffed my way through the sad and lonely morning.
I finally decided that there was no use feeling sorry for myself and being a lost and lonely drama queen. No one cared. I needed to move on and do something meaningful with my life.
Baby steps. I needed to take baby steps like washing my face, fixing my hair, and, finally, leaving the house.
I needed to get a job.
So, without further ado, I threw in a load of laundry, put supper in the crockpot and set off to do just that. Get a job.
The above is, of course, the Reader’s Digest version of how it all came down, but before I knew it I did it. I got a job. In those days, jobs were easy to find, kind of like picking the apples off the low branches of the apple tree.
Anyway, I was hired as a typesetter in a newspaper office. If you happen to be reading this and you are in your thirties, you will have to Google that archaic term, along with the word, typewriter.
Anyway, my job was to type in all the editor’s copy. For some reason, that even I cannot comprehend, it wasn’t long before I decided I really didn’t want to be typing someone else’s copy. If I were going to be pounding away on a keyboard, it was going to be my own stuff that showed up, concise and factual stories, or stories full of word pictures, so vivid and colourful and full of emotion they would grab the reader’s attention from start to finish.
I never did totally achieve that lofty goal totally, but I certainly did have fun trying. And I got my own byline.
Anyway, that’s how it happened. I became a reporter. I listened. I learned. I took courses and before I knew it someone handed me a notebook and a pen (they were free in those days), showed me how to load a camera and pushed me out the door into the reporting world.
“I’m not ready,” I muttered to no one in particular. “Yes, you are,” ‘my confident, take a chance’ self answered back to me.
That was a long ago. Looking into the rear-view mirror with rose-colored glasses, I wax nostalgic and sentimental about those days in the newsroom but looking ahead I must admit I feel something akin to excitement and adventure because, once again, I have stepped out of my comfort zone.
I wrote a play.
I wrote the play one slow news day when I should have been looking for leads. I can admit that now. It was before COVID and before the huge changes the world was about to face came down.
My play was acted out by a group of friends as well as my granddaughter in my kitchen, one bitterly cold night, amid laughter and several glasses of wine and then it was put away, never to see the light of day. Until now.
Now, thanks to an amazing and talented theatre person, Tanya Ryga, Sylvan Lake Theatre Trail has been born. And I am proud and humbled to say my play, called Summer’s End is one of four plays that will be shown during its debut.
Of course, I have all the usual misgivings. What if no one comes? What if a lot of people come and hate it?
And then there’s that little voice inside of me that says, “I’m not ready.” And then the other voice that, take a chance voice that speaks louder and with confidence responds, “yes, you are.”
And so, it begins. A new adventure. Who knew?
It’s too late. You’re too old.
Don’t believe it. Believe in miracles. Believe in second chances. Believe in the impossible.
Just believe!
Treena Mielke is a Central Alberta writer. She lives in Sylvan Lake with her family.