BY MERILYN OBLAD
Once upon a time, I sat around a flint-knapping debris pile with a bunch of other people, trading life-stories and making what should have been tools out of rocks but were, in reality, just lumps of broken stone. I noticed a certain pattern of restlessness to the stories my compatriots told, which restlessness led to all manner of interesting and far-ranging escapades in their lives.
I was in my mid-twenties then, and was an awkward combination of shy introversion and cocky confidence in my newly completed college education. In spite of that confidence, I was deeply aware of my lack of exotic life-experience and was dreading having nothing to really say for myself.
The moment of reckoning pounced on me, and with an embarrassed flush, I told everyone that my life wasn’t very interesting. I was raised in Las Vegas, NV, educated in Reno, NV, and then in Provo, UT, but had really done nothing else. I was completely embarrassed and wished that I could disappear and take my story with me (I really don’t like talking about myself, then or now), but the most wonderful thing happened after I ground to an ashamed halt. The leader of the group looked at me, and in the kindest voice I’d heard in a long time, told me that I said my life wasn’t interesting, but he bet it was interesting to me. To my utter surprise, he was right. My life is interesting to me.
You see, my life then, and even more so now, is filled with learning and thinking and making sense of my life experiences, all things I revel in. I adore learning and understanding things that I previously haven’t. So, I am an educated woman, schooled in the art of history and analytical thinking and writing. That means I studied the small details of the human experience as they changed over time and learned to carefully piece them together into a comprehensive whole. Or, at least as comprehensive as I could make it.
I have tried to understand why events happened the way they did and what impact they had on humanity. For instance, a storm in the English Channel/Atlantic Ocean in 1588 created such difficulty for the Spanish Armada that they were defeated by a far inferior force, the English Navy.
That defeat allowed the English to gain supremacy in Europe in terms of naval power, which led to a substantially greater interest in the New World (since you had to get on a boat to get there and with their greatly expanded fleet, they could afford exploratory expeditions), which in turn led to a greater colonial presence of English in North America than other nationalities, which meant that the English experience with government influenced the creation of the United States Government, rather than say, the Spanish or the French, as you see in South and Central America. And all of that because of one storm. See what I mean? Totally intriguing.
I wrote quite a bit throughout my college years, starting with short-sentenced, choppy analyses of historical documents, and culminating with a long-winded 93-page master’s thesis exploring the impact of music on gendered ideas of honor and duty during the American Civil War. (Fascinating stuff, really. Who knew popular music could define a war for an entire generation?)
I write less now, since there’s little call for historical essays outside the hallowed halls of higher education. And I don’t claim to be a writer of anything else. (Periodically I try to write a little fiction, but I get stuck in my need to explain everything in minute detail and can’t move the plot along at a reasonable pace.) I have tremendous respect for those who do write, since their efforts have kept me entertained for decades.
Speaking of which, I am (of course!) a voracious reader. Nancy Drew Mysteries started me on the reading path of no return, quickly followed by fantasy and sci-fi, tender romance, and an unexpected foray into Jane Austen fanfic, plus the occasional international thriller. I constantly find myself analyzing the books I read, seeking patterns and trends in individual authors’ works.
Now, I put those analytical skills to good use by helping other writers with their writing. I’m a proofreader, which is a very good job for me. I catch the mistakes that fall through the cracks of rewrites, line and content editing, formatting, and more rewrites. I am into the details, much like I was as a student of history. (See? I told you it’s a good job for me!)
Between then and now, I was a research assistant (also a good job for me), a fabric cutter, a grader of standardized tests, a tutor, a nanny (a deeply rewarding job), and a front desk clerk at a motel. I’m looking forward to using all that lovely life experience I didn’t have at the flint-knapping pile in my new role as an editorial assistant with Xchyler.
With all of that, some things don’t change. I’m still an introvert. I still observe and think more than I speak. And I still pay attention to details and try to place them in the larger picture. To put it into tired cliché form, I try to see both the forest and the trees, forsaking neither because understanding does not occur without both. And understanding is one of the things that make life interesting. To me, at least.
A lover of all things historical, MeriLyn Oblad has both a BA and MA in History, the former from the University of Nevada, Reno and the latter from Brigham Young University. She brings more than a decade of document analysis, an eye for fine detail, and seven years of writing local histories to the Xchyler table.
When not proofreading for Xchyler, she volunteers with the local heritage society, reads prolifically, and occasionally can be persuaded to sew quilts for loved ones. MeriLyn (pronounced “Mary Lynn”) currently resides in Southern Utah and spends her Sundays teaching music to about 40 children.
MeriLyn is currently plowing through an immense pile of short stories for our Mr. and Mrs. Myth anthology competition, her first project with The X.
