Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
~ George Bernard Shaw
***
“Don’t even try to outwork your mother. You’ll never be able to.”
It is the first weekend in April and I am bringing an end to my workday by having a beer, or several beers, with a former Saratoga Sun reporter. One Tom “Ted” Dixon, beer in hand, is advising me to work smarter, not harder. When he says the bit about my mother, I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped. I think I very nearly dropped my beer.
My mother, in her time at the newspaper, left an unmistakable mark on the Valley and on those who worked with her, like many other editors and publishers who preceded her. I had a feeling, coming into the newspaper, that I would have to contend with being “Liz’s son” from the very beginning. I would be lying if I said I haven’t used that title to my advantage once or twice in the last four months.
One of my goals coming into the Sun, however, was to get to the point where people could separate the person my mother was from the person that I am. To that end, I believe I may be succeeding. One of the people that have lead me to believe I am succeeding at this is my mother herself. During the weekend, we often go on drives throughout the Valley attempting to get photos of wildlife and landscape. These drives also give us a chance to talk and, when it comes to my articles and columns, she has been very complimentary.
This is huge! Mom expects as much out of my brother, Garry, and me as she does out of herself and she expects a lot out of herself. So, to get some pretty amazing compliments from her on my writing style or my coverage of something is a huge morale booster. Another boost to both my morale and my confidence is people stopping me on the street or in a store and telling me how much they appreciated one article or another.
***
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.
~ Salvador Dali
***
Believe it or not, while it is hard to hear criticism it is sometimes even harder to hear praise. When people begin to tell you how impressed they are with you, a weight begins to form on your shoulders. People now expect something of you. That, in and of itself, can be a terrifying concept. You reach a weird dichotomy where you want to be able to do the best job you possibly can, but you don’t always want people to notice.
Four months into the job and I’m starting to feel like I don’t have to add “I’m Liz’s son” to the end of my introduction anymore. At least, I don’t have to add it as often as I did when I first began running around the Valley. At the end of the day, however, I sometimes still feel the shadow of my mom’s presence in the Valley and the office. Still, it is entirely possible that I never had to add that I was Liz’s son to the end of my introductions even from the beginning.
It is also entirely possible that I was never in my mother’s shadow as I began my time at the newspaper. The number of “Taking over your mom’s old job” comments, however, do lead me to doubt that just a little bit. Ask any person in the Valley, or any other small community, whose parents have been involved in business, politics or news. It’s hard not to feel like there is something expected of you based on a rubric unknowingly set by your parents.
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I thought research would be a little more glamorous, somehow. I’d give the librarian a secret code word and he’d give me the one book I needed and whisper the necessary page numbers.
~ Libba Bray
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“That’s why you’re so good at this job. You like doing the research.”
This statement, made by mom, while we were driving along miles of county road dissecting acres of ranch land made me realize that I was probably starting to step out of her shadow. For every article that is able to be read in a matter of minutes, there is often hours of research serving as a structure for the story. Sometimes it’s not hours, sometimes it’s days or weeks.
I love the research. Whether it’s digging into the municipal code for the Town of Saratoga based on a random comment made at a planning commission meeting or finding out as much as I can about the spruce budworm after talking with our local silviculturist, the research energizes me. According to my mom, that sets me apart from her. While she understood the need for the research, she wasn’t necessarily always a fan of the time it took.
My brother and I are both lovers of information. Up until recently, Garry struggled with insomnia and he would spend hours online scrolling through Wikipedia and clicking the sources. I find myself reading articles and books of varying subjects, though I am a science-fiction nerd at my core, and have only been able to use that information in random conversation. Now that I’m here, I can access my “Encyclopedia of Useless Information” and make it, well, useful.
The downside to all of this, of course, is that I can get into the research a little too much and sometimes the research doesn’t even make it to the page. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s time wasted, it is disappointing in some ways that I am unable to share more of this information. It is still exciting, though.
As reporters, we must become temporary experts. Sometimes it’s not as temporary as we think.
Now that I’m stepping out of the shadows, whether they were ever really there or not, I’m having to find my sunglasses. I look forward to continuing to write quality articles for you to read.
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