Lisa Made Me Do This.

The scene:

January, 2012. Dinner time. Dupont Circle, Washington, DC – 19^th Street, to be precise. Several women meeting each other in person for the first time after developing online friendships (aah, the power of social media). 

The restaurant is called Ezmé, a romantically modern and intimate place, dimly lit, handsomely and culturally appointed, wowing diners with an array of Turkish tapas beyond explanation and pronunciation. I am beside myself with delight and pleasure over our culinary luck, and have a spiritual experience in front of my friends, the other patrons, the wait staff, and God, over their mashed potatoes – a  dish normally treated as an afterthought, an inexpensive starch to throw under a slab of meat. I am taking pictures of my mashed potatoes, making all my friends try them, telling the manager of the restaurant to thank the chef for me. I am unabashedly and publicly falling in love with my mashed potatoes.

My friend Lisa, a writer, poet, and teacher of writers and poets, points out to me that my food experiences should be blogged. That I have what writers refer to as “a voice.” That my way with words, my passion for them, my love of using them to externalize the internal, has a place in the great modern pantheon of words: The Internet.

Most people don’t think themselves Writers – they leave writing to the professionals. Or, there are some, like me, who have long thought writing should be left to the Writers. My best friend Josieda has been telling me for some time that I actually am a Writer. It has taken some time for that to sink in.

You may either thank or blame Lisa for this. She is the alpha, the source, the courage.