Hannah Gamble
Fun fact: I collect too many hobbies, from martial arts and hiking to playing viola, painting, and pyrography.
I grew up with goats and chickens in the yard, broccoli and chard from Dad’s garden on the table, and Mom’s hand-sewn doll stuffed with sheep’s wool and dried lavender tucked under my arm. The scent of stewed plums and guavas being processed for canning filled summer’s humid kitchen.
Now, I microwave frozen vegetables in a plastic sack and serve chicken nuggets so far removed from their feathered source that they might as well be the dinosaurs they’re shaped as.
All this to say, I’m not nearly as crunchy as my parents.
In the early years of my marriage, Mom gave me a book from her shelf titled “Putting Food By.” This 1973 manual by Janet Greene details how to “can, freeze, pickle, dry, cure, and preserve” all kinds of fresh foods—how to keep perishable matter from spoiling.
I flipped through the book’s pages, set it on a shelf, and eventually misplaced it without preserving a thing (sorry, Mom).
There were batches of tomatoes I should have roasted and jarred. Onions I could have pickled. Sourdough starter I might have dried and stored, but instead let die a slow and pungent death on the counter next to the box of Pop-Tarts.
Some things keep better than others.
Two years ago, I signed up for a Creative Writing class at Grossmont College. As a mother of four who finished my undergraduate degree ten years prior, I felt out of place among the traditional students. Teens and twenties on brand new paths, pursuing their first dreams instead of third and fourth ones. I recognized their zeal. I remembered, at that age, how often friends and strangers asked about my goals and aspirations.
Eventually, people stop asking. But do any of us stop dreaming? A few wise adults cautioned me in those days that dreams can (and often should) change. I didn’t believe them then.
The intensity and joy of those alternate dreams caught me completely off guard. Now, I hold my two-year-old daughter on my lap, her curls pressed to my cheek, and watch my nine-year-old’s green eyes catch light as he drafts a fable. This dream is bigger and more fulfilling than I could have imagined, and it’s happening right now. Not everything can be put by for a later day.
I originally started working on a Creative Writing certificate for professional development, but it quickly came to mean more to me. The version of myself that dabbled in poetry at fourteen burst through a hidden trapdoor somewhere in my hippocampus and demanded a driver’s seat.
This alter-ego is more of a stunt driver than the current minivan mom. She leaves drawers open, lets pots boil over, and regularly loses all sense of time in a state my husband refers to as Hannahland. Running poetry lines and planning novel scenes takes up the cognitive bandwidth usually reserved for keeping track of space, time, and grocery lists.
But like the harvest of my childhood neatly preserved under pressure in little glass jars, this dream of being a writer kept beautifully.
If you’re reading this, fellow creative, I’m willing to bet you have a dream or two on the pantry shelf. An unwritten novel, a poetry collection, a play begging to be brought alive. A creative side you’ve put by for a later day.
I dare you to join us at the San Diego Writers Festival on March 28th and crack that dream open. Revel in how much room there is to learn and grow. Spread ink on the paper like blackberry preserves on homemade sourdough. Taste it.
Some dreams get sweeter with age.
