Writing is a release from stress. There is something very grounding about putting words together.

I am at heart a writer. At times, this has seemed like a hooker referring to herself as a public relations expert.

I have never not written, since the age of about 5 when I learned I could preserve a thought by making marks on a piece of paper. My mother was a writer, as was my father. They were also academics – English professors to be exact – and he went on to be president of a university in Indianapolis. She left her formal teaching career, and continued to pour her creative skills into public speaking and writing. She put into words whatever was necessary – history, comedy, obituary text – it didn’t matter. She typed like a demon, and I knew not to bother her until the typewriter went “ding.”

Some time ago, I was asked to write about my mother, and how she shaped my life. I don’t know how to convey how complex she was, how talented and valiant. She had a killing sense of humor, and she seemed fearless. It wouldn’t be until much later that she would whisper to me, “I almost wet my pants.”

She is the one who taught me how to roll the car out of the driveway and down the hill so Dad wouldn’t hear us leave the house. We’d wait until he went to sleep, and then we were out of there. It was the adventure of the escape that we enjoyed. There wasn’t much open in Indianapolis after 10:00, so we’d usually stroll around a drugstore that was open late, or get a Pepsi at the drive-in before we’d sneak back in.

My parents experienced a depression, several wars, recessions, and countless deaths and disasters. The one constant in our lives was writing. My mother said, “You can always find something to do with it.”

However, my first choice as a career was not writing. I wanted to be a musician – a cellist. I studied for years, and was an okay cellist. A series of ear infections and hearing loss ended any serious thoughts I had about pursuing the life of a chamber musician. When I sold my cello, my mother said, “Well, now what?”

The most empowering thing she ever did for me was let me use her typewriter. When I was in first grade, I pushed a stool up to the typing table so I could see. Eventually, she bought me my own machine, and when I went off to college, I got an electric typewriter. I used it until David bought our personal computer in about 1981 or 1982 for the princely sum of $5,000. We were newlyweds, and I almost had a heart attack. The little gray plastic box changed my life.

Speaking of David – he and I have worked together for about 33 years. We became acquainted on the job at a music publishing company. As an editor and copywriter, I was much farther down the food chain than he was.  I wrote a lot of liner notes for albums and cassettes, and he was the production manager, then the general manager, and finally the executive vice president. Early in our marriage, I decided to pursue a career as an independent, and I worked for a stable of independent graphic designers, and for several ad agencies. When David decided to hang out his shingle as a publisher, I tabled my plans to begin teaching second grade and we established Serey Jones.

Serey Jones was formally incorporated in early 1992, and we have worked from referrals ever since. We have never advertised, and we have never tried to expand beyond our little studio. We thought about it once a long time ago, and decided that we wanted to remain small so we could personalize everything we do. David is a friend of technology, and I remain the words person. A writer should be paired with somebody who doesn’t narrate every nuance of daily life, which I most certainly do in my own head. David is almost entirely visual, and unless you say, “Read this” to him, type consists of shapes – not words. I am the polar opposite – which is why we have been able to work in very close quarters for decades without killing each other.

I used to write for the sheer joy of it. Now I write because it is what I do. It is far too late in life to join the rodeo, become a surgeon, or pick up the cello again. Yet, there is still joy in it. Occasionally, there is even a bit of income as a result.