Looking back, I think my grandmother was luring me in. The way that birdwatchers hang suet to attract woodpeckers and chickadees. None of my brothers seemed interested in the clunky old Underwood, but I think my father’s mother sensed something in me. That’s why the door to her closet-sized writing room was always open. She was hoping that someone would discover the power of vowels and consonants and what can happen when they’re made into words. Her hands were the hands of a farmer’s wife, but her heart and her fingertips belonged to the keyboard of that old manual typewriter. She left it out for me. And I took the bait.
Like a pump jack in
