Donna\nDufresne<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear Readers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank\nyou so much for visiting my little \u201cShe-Shed\u201d, where I crunch out reams of\nwritten word. I finally got around to starting a blog, thanks to my more\ntechnically savvy husband. After years of dropping guerilla essays, poetry,\nsongs and fiction onto my Facebook page, or worse, sending op-eds through e-mail\nat home and school, I have taken the advice of many and created a home for all\nthose words. It is an open house, of sorts and anyone is welcome to visit,\nponder, and respond to conversations generated by the writing I share in this\nliving room. I am a prolific writer, willing to take risks with my pen (or the\nkeyboard, as I prefer to write on my laptop). I dabble in many genres, and being\na risk-taker, am willing to drop pretenses. This has led me to a more honest\n(tell-it-like-it-is) voice rooted in my working-class background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One thing you should know\nabout me, is that I write through the lens of humor and the heart of kindness. This\nis not to say that you won\u2019t find biting and acerbic commentary about President\nTrump, or windows into heartbreak and the dark side of these times. You might\nnot find my comments very funny but know this: I take delight in every aspect\nof being human and having the opportunity to dance on this Earth. I believe that my purpose is to give voice to\nthose who do not have a voice, and to bring light into dark corners, be it\nthrough the songs I write, the music I perform, creative non-fiction essays,\nmemoir pieces, fiction, history, and critical analysis about the polity and\nculture of these times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although I am extremely\nfocused and disciplined, I am not one to plod along a single path or genre. I\nam your typical creative-productive personality, never happier than when I have\nseveral pots burning on the stove. Therefore, you will find a variety of posts,\nas I cull though nearly a half-century of creative work. In some ways, I\u2019ve\nbeen successful in actualizing my talents. I\u2019ve recorded five albums of\noriginal songs, written two musicals, several one-woman shows of historical\ncharacters, and performed with several renditions of a band which has evolved\nover the years. But I suffer from the\npeculiar oppression of rural isolation. \nYou will learn through my memoirs that I grew up in a place which felt\nimpossibly lonely, dancing on the edge of an upper-middle class and wealthy\nneighborhood in a working-poor and uneducated family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My family thought I was\nthe cat\u2019s pajamas when it came to talent, but they saw no place for it in the world\nand made it clear that people like \u201cus\u201d did not become writers, singers or\nactors. People like us work with their hands, pulling themselves up by the\nbootstraps in the struggle to climb that ladder of security. People like me,\ngot married, had children and\u2026well that was the problem. I wasn\u2019t sure what\ncame after the and<\/em>. I wanted more\nthan that but lacked the entitlement and the where-with-all to find my proper\nplace in the world. This is what I mean\nby \u201cdancing on the edge of the middleclass\u201d. \nI have known people with far less talent and very little to say who seemingly\nfind success through their art with little effort. They travel in circles of privilege,\nnot unlike the college kids who have numerous alumni in their families. The path has been carved out for them without\nany effort on their part. Just so you\nknow, I am the first college graduate in my family. I mean ever. I have a\nMaster\u2019s in education but would have preferred an MFA. No siblings, aunts,\nuncles or cousins in my pedigree have crossed the line into that enemy territory\nof the educated class. I come from that strange rural sensibility that will not\ntrust the people who truck in paper and words for a living. Although they wouldn\u2019t articulate it like\nthis, they see intellectualism as part of the machine that has kept them down.\nIn some ways they are right about the machine. I have spent a lifetime greasing\nthe cogs of that wheel, trying to get it to work for me. I come from the kind\nof people who voted for Trump, and it infuriates me that they don\u2019t see that he\nis<\/em> the machine. I do have to say that\nmy 94-year old father has come around in his old age. He voted for President Obama\nand refused to vote for Trump by not to voting at all, seeing the Clintons as\npart of the machine as well. It\u2019s too bad he dind\u2019t vote!<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was about\nnine-years-old, I announced that I wanted to grow up to be a writer. I\u2019d read Little Women<\/em> and was smitten with Louisa\nMay Alcott and the idea that a woman could support her family by writing\nstories. I had constructed the outline\nfor the kind of book I would have read at the time. Part Nancy Drew, part\nLittle Women and Little House on the Prairie. \nThe plot included some kind of underground tunnel that went from the old\nColonial cellar hole which was buried under our driveway and meandered beneath\nthe potato field and the pasture and into Fred D. Whittier\u2019s barn cellar. The\ndetective protagonist (most likely me), would discover artifacts and treasures\nalong the way, which told the stories of people from the past who\u2019d escaped\nIndian massacres, and slavery through that underground tunnel. Of course, my\nfamily was delighted by my stories. I got a used typewriter for Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being of the\nworking-class, the pragmatic doers and makers in the world, it seemed\nappropriate that they would honor my yearning to write by providing me with the\nmachinery that would facilitate it. But the tool was not enough. It didn\u2019t\nreally help me to figure out the mechanics of academia. I was never a good\nspeller and hated school most of my life. The typewriter couldn\u2019t show me a\npathway to success. There would be no guidance counselors sending pamphlets\nhome, no college visits. I was way under that radar, and too far out of the\nbox. I was the oddball kid who skipped school to go to the library and work on\nthe family genealogy. But I didn\u2019t go unnoticed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I won \u201cmost talented\u201d\nawards, had the leads in the high school musicals, sang solos in the high school\nchorus, and was offered a scholarship to pursue music and drama, which my\nparents promptly turned down, pushing into marriage right after graduation.\nPeople were rather appalled. Teachers, neighbors and a host of visitors came by\nthe house to try to talk some sense into my parents. Mr. Aubrey, the husband of\nour African American art teacher came by to deliver a tape of Hello Dolly,\nwhich he had recorded from the High school musical. I had the lead role. He urged my parents to discourage me from\nmarrying my high school sweetheart. He told them that a girl with my talent\nshould go to college. My mother informed him that I didn\u2019t want that kind of life.\nI wanted to settle down and have a family. \nThat wasn\u2019t true at all. The last thing I wanted to do was settle down.\nI just wanted that train ticket out of town that my husband-to-be and his middle-class\nfamily might offer me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But one thing is for\nsure. That typewriter become my real ticket into a bigger life. The most useful\ncourse I took in high school was typing, and though I would have made a\nterrible secretary, having no penchant for following orders, I can type like a\nwizard. Finally, I had an instrument that could keep up with my thoughts. No\nmore tedious notebooks filled with words and leaking, messy ink blotches. I made\nprogress over the years from the clunky old Vintage Royal of my childhood, to streamlined\nportables and into the age of technology when I got my first electric typewriter,\nthen a word processor. I finally landed my first desktop computer when I was\nputting myself through college (working three jobs, I might add). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that I have given you\na bit of a tour of my living room, some thoughts and ideas, and a glimpse of\nwho I am, I will leave you on this introductory visit with an \u201cI Come From\u201d\npoem I wrote many years ago. Please stop\nby again for a bit of fiction or reflective and creative non-fiction and thank\nyou for dancing outside the box with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n WHERE\nI COME FROM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Donna\nDufresne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncome from a place where you can hear <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\ntap, tap, tap of the milkman\u2019s boots on a cement walk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\na whistle fading into the dawn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Telling\nme my father has gone<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Into\nthe world of working men<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncome from a place where the screen door slams<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nshakes the walls<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As\nmothers step out upon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Their\npea-shucking porches to call<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nwe scurry like tiny denim insects<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Out\nof secret places toward the light of home<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncome from a place where bloodlines run hot through my veins<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nwe are still fighting those Indian wars <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even\nas our skin begins to fade<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nmy grandfather\u2019s baseball bat stands<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nthat corner by the door<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Waiting\nfor someone who will dare to cross that line<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncome from a place where women pin their dreams on clotheslines hung just so<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A\ncolor code of hope all washed up and tidy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nyet you know<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nmust be more to life than this<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When\nyou rub your nose deep into crisp cotton sheets<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\nremind you of the bluest of summer skies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncome from a place where men work hard and close to the earth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Their\nsweat smelling of diesel fuel and the piston grease of tractors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nyou know that they have pulled themselves<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Up\nby their bootstraps every day of their lives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because\nthey have told you so at the end of the day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n By\ntheir silent, vacant smiles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncome from a place where you can eat off the floor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In\na kitchen wrapped in ivy wallpaper<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\nhides the angry-fisted walls that were too thin to begin with<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nthe warm earthy scent of baked beans and brown bread<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Dances\nwith my grandmother\u2019s dandelion greens dug up with a fork<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nset to boil with salt pork<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On\nthe back of a kerosene stove.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncome from a place where my grandfather\u2019s inventor hands<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Have\nfashioned the tools on which factories ran<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nSunday is a day for church and baseball on the radio<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Which\nfloats through that watermelon curtained house<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like\nhis dreams<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh,\nhis dreams of what he might have been<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n OH,\nOUR DREAMS OF WHAT WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN<\/strong>\n\n\n\n\n\n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donna Dufresne Dear Readers, Thank you so much for visiting my little \u201cShe-Shed\u201d, where I crunch out reams of written word. I finally got around to starting a blog, thanks to my more technically savvy husband. After years of dropping guerilla essays, poetry, songs and fiction onto my Facebook page, or worse, sending op-eds … <\/p>\n