I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: not quite the same by sheila morris

  • Memorable Moments with Millie: A Friendship Story

    Memorable Moments with Millie: A Friendship Story


    me and Millie with her dog, Bear, in the 1970s

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    My piece today contains excerpts from a chapter in my second book, Not Quite the Same. which was published in 2009. I cut a large descriptive section of a golf outing in this chapter about our playing golf in the snow one Friday afternoon at a local club. Censorship of language was mandatory due to a large bottle of Crown Royal Millie and I shared that afternoon playing golf in the snow.

    Millie Miller is 80 this month, and I still believe I’m lucky to have had her as a friend for the past 50 years. We rarely see each other, but we have phone conversations to discuss our ailments, friends we’ve lost, and the money we would have if we hadn’t spent it all on those women we met in the bar.

    Millie Miller, still calling it like she sees it. Rock on, Millie.

  • the power of the written word

    the power of the written word


    I never fully understood the power of writing until I heard other people read what I wrote.  My stories were safe.  They would be remembered and told by these women and others like them.  Although I thought the night revolved around me, I was wrong.  They inspired me. These women treasured words and ideas that created bonds among them.  My words were now a little part of their wealth of knowledge that lived beyond the pages. I was elated and honored to be the first author invited to attend their book club meeting, the eleventh anniversary of the diverse group of ten members. The club had chosen my second book Not Quite the Same as their book of the month in August, 2011. The night was not only great fun but also inspirational.

    Dame Daphne du Maurier, the English author and playwright, decries our infatuation with literary public readings by writers, noting that “writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.” She makes a good point, although I have to admit I love to read my own words aloud.  Maybe it’s because I often read audibly as I write. Therefore it makes sense I like to read to other people. I was so taken with the sound of my own voice I made an audio version of my first book, Deep in the Heart:A Memoir of Love and Longing. My thanks to the three people who actually bought that CD, wherever you are. 

    I believe all of us have stories to tell, that storytelling is a primal need. I’ve seen stones in New Mexico that are hundreds of thousands of years old, and you know what’s on them?  Narratives of tales someone wanted to tell. They’re told in drawings on the rock faces, but they were someone’s disciplined efforts to communicate, and I felt I was there with the storyteller when I stood next to their work. I never sat down to write a book. I wanted to save my stories of the people and places in them. They became a book because I couldn’t quit writing.  Now, it’s like not being able to turn off a faucet.

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    Flannery O’Connor, the noted Southern Gothic writer, answered the question for me of why I write: I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I write.

    Tell it, Sister Girl.