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The Need To Get Dirty

When one does not know what to write, it is a time to get dirty.

I mean gardening, folks. At least for today.

Me writing anything on gardening gives life to the saying: ‘those who can, do; those’ who can’t, write about it.’ A green thumb I have not. My photo is on the wall of every gardening centre within 100 miles, under the caption: Do Not Sell To This Woman Without Proof of Supervision. My garden isn’t a wellspot of new life; it’s palliative care for the flora and fauna set. Comments on my garden bypass the usual niceties of “My, how your hydrandgea is blooming,” straight to the ‘Wow, it’s not dead yet. How did you manage that?” My garden is not the place, you would think, to spark any kind of creative flow.

But it does. For one thing, gardening is best done outdoors. There is warmth from the sun, cool from the breeze or, for the more hardy, the wet kiss of rain or chilling boot to the arse of a northeast gale. But there is sensation, temperature change, a tingling on the skin just from standing there. Breathe in, and there are scents: earthy, flowery, and yes, manmade, too, and while your neighbour’s incinerated offerings of barbecue may not be the most delightful of aromas, there is still an engagement of brain, a spurring of thought. What is that charred carcass on his plate? What if this mild-mannered manager by day becomes a pet-chomping carnivore by the light of the grill? And there you have it: a story idea, just like that.

Now for the really good stuff. On your knees, amid weeds and rocks and clumps of soil are tiny sprouts reaching skyward despite the odds. Feel it through your fingertips and up your arm, earth warm from the sun, damp from the rain. Poke a hole, drop a seed or a tiny clumping of roots, cover, repeat. orderly, fragrant, backbreaking, but necessary if the dirt is to bloom, if the tomatoes on your summer salad are to be sun-kissed rather than factory-sprayed.

You rise stiffly, joints creaking, hands caked in mud, and look down at something you have accomplished staring back at you. For the two minutes or two hours you’ve been in the garden, you haven’t thought once about the blank page  on your screen, the missing word that taunts you, the hackneyed sentence begging for an edit. But you have been writing. After soap suds chase the mud down the drain and beverage suds rehydrate body and spirit, you’ll see them. Words begging to be planted, the blank screen a garden ready for its gardener.

How do the seasons influence your writing? Happy Spring!

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Think, Work, Stop. Honouring your Creative Cycle.

I heard this weekend that playwright Neil Simon wrote for seven months of the year, rested for five. Why? He was honouring his Cycle of Creativity.

Now, we can, too. You have time for this. Repeat after me. Think. Work. Stop. Repeat. Think. Work. Stop.

I’m fresh from a screenwriting workshop with the amazing Cynthia Whitcomb. Fresh is not the term often attached to a Saturday and Sunday spent in a boardroom but in this case, the word fits. I see my writing and my options in bright new ways thanks to Cynthia’s ability to share her passion for writing, talent for bringing words to life in pictures and experience of 40 years in the movie/TV business. Of the thousands of bytes of information I took from this weekend, her description of the Cycle of Creativity stands highest. Imagine a pie divided in three equal pieces. One piece is Brahma, what Cynthia calls the BAM! moment, the ‘cool! I’m so inspired’ idea that grabs hold and urges you to put pen to paper or finger to key. The next piece is Vishnu, a pretty word for work. Hard work. Lots of work that make the idea a reality. Finished your creation?  Next is Shiva, the stop and rest piece. It all makes so much sense it sounds simplistic. Yet seeing the pie, reading the words and best of all hearing the affirmation from a sucessful writer has done much to alleviate the guilt attached to ‘not working hard enough’ while silencing that cranky inner voice insisting that I drop this writing act and get a real job. “Our culture does not honour shiva,” Cynthia told us point blank, and it is true. Workplace heroes are the ones who give up vacations and work night after night of overtime, not those who back away from their desks to take their loved ones on a much-needed getaway. Artists are lauded for volume and frequency of product more often than quality of same. Work is necessary and can be fulfilling in itself. But without ideas, and without time to recharge, how substantial and sustainable can the output be?

You know the answer. We all do.

Cynthia shared the Neil Simon example to make the point. Being able to honour his cycle clearly worked for him and for the millions who enjoy his plays and their screen incarnations. Say it with me. Yes, I can honour our creative cycle, and I will. Avoid the pitfall of the Brahma junkie, take the high generated by your idea and plunge into Vishnu, emerging when the project is done or at a resting place to honour shiva. Take two months to see Australia, or take an afternoon to clean up your desk, whatever works that isn’t work to you.

Think. Work. Stop. I feel better already. How about you?

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The warmth of a good giveaway

We are to honour our ancestors, but it’s bloody difficult when mine didn’t have the sense to a board a ship headed south. They didn’t end up in the Arctic, at least, but the Canadian East Coast in the grip of a February freeze is a few mitts short of a full house in the game of flesh versus frostbite. As a writer I can let my creative juices freeze where they sit, stay wine-soaked until April, or engage in some creative ways to reach the world without leaving the warmth of my flannel cocoon. As it turns out. there is nothing like a good giveaway to keep the thoughts and brand moving through the darkness of winter, and it is my great honour to announce some recent contests that have brightened my winter and hopefully the winners’ days as well.

Now, those same ancestors who thought settling in a country with four seasons – Autumn, Hockey, Playoffs, and Road Construction – was a great idea would be rolling in their graves at the thought of a good Scotch lass giving anything away for free. To be clear, I’m only part-Scotch. I’m also English, German, and Dutch, among other things, which lead to some interesting battles even before I open my eyes. Those battles, though, are the spark behind my creativity. Thanks to a few contests, my spark has been fanned to glowing in a season that needs warmth – and inspiration – the most.

First, Goodreads. I listed my third book for a giveaway that ended Wednesday (Feb. 6). Over 440 entries. Not a lot to some people but to me, that’s huge. Three winners: east coast, west coast and across the pond to the UK. How cool is that? Today, I will skip to the post office, heedless of the wind chill, at the thought of being able to share my work with new folks far afield. 

Then, Facebook. Our cover artist for the new book allowed us to make three prints of his work, which he numbered and signed. Three Facebook fans were selected at random for these prints: one local, one regional, and one again across the ocean to Ireland. Now my artist is excited, too. Just in time for the cover of book four …

Our local library and radio station helped with the rest. An on-air interview and giveaway put a copy of each of my three titles into the hands of three new readers. A door prize at my library reading provided a set of books to another rwader new to my series. 

Giving things away may not pay for a trip south, but it does pay in offering a pick-me-up in the post-Christmas sag and putting my books and brand into warm appreciative hands rather than the chill of my basement.

Congratulations, winners, and everyone esle, stay tuned. Thi giveaway thing is so much fun, I hope to do it more often. Maybe a spring shower of stories … if it ever stops snowing. 

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Miss Patti Page: strength from the flip side

I at first felt sad at the news of Patti Page’s passing, even though I hadn’t even been thought of when Tennessee Waltz and Old Cape Cod topped the charts. In fact I was an adult, watching one of those PBS specials where silver-topped fans weave and sing on waves of memories poured forth from performers who looked nothing like their album covers but still captured hearts in the sweet embrace of nostalgia and song, when I saw Patti Page perform Tennessee Waltz for the first time. “That’s Patti Page?” I wrinkled my nose. I had grown up listening to Patti Sings Golden Hits of the Boys, her Mercury album release from 1962. I’m Walkin’. Big Bad John. Mack the Knife. Now those were songs worth listening to, not some boring dance love song thing. I knew she was a cover artist, but in my mind, those sings were hers, too. “Tennessee Waltz was her biggest hit,” my mother confirmed. I couldn’t see it, or hear it.

Age has relaxed my ears to a broader range of music, and I confess the Tennessee Waltz is indeed lovely. However, the song itself still doesn’t intrigue me as much as the story of how it became a hit. The song was a literal Plan B, the flip side of a Christmas single that was a sure-fired hit, a filler song to support the release of the real gold mine: Boogie Woogie Santa Claus. The executives had it all planned.

But Patti’s talent was destined for other things. Tennessee Waltz floated above the jazzy horns and driving beat to outscore Santa himself on the charts, its gentle mournful sway drawing couples together by the thousands on dance floors and in living rooms across North America. Christmas is a guaranteed seller, but so is love – sweet, simple, longing desire.

Patti Page has left this world after 85 years, and while it is easy to mourn the loss of her voice and sparkle, it is difficult to deny that she has earned passage to a place where she will never age, lose her voice or be forgotten. The beloved author Erma Bombeck once said: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say ‘I used everything you gave me.’ ” Patti was still going strong in the entertainment world. She gave up her name and her life to give the world the gift of music. She used everything she was given, without using up herself.

As an author, I take heart in her example. You can give yourself to your craft without losing yourself in it. The world still appreciates a good love story. And it is possible to be lovely, active, and a respected force in the world at age 85.

My books may find their audience yet. There is always Side B.

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Longest night: Day of Doritos and Gratitude

Longest Night. For winter-loving folk it sings a chorus of skis and hockey. For me, it is Shortest Day, SADS on a stick, jabbing me with icy spears of dread while growling threats of carb cravings and cabin fever that even the writer’s cure-all – wine – can’t silence. But this year it may be different. And I have my muse to thank.

To be clear, my muse is not a mythical creature or a figment of imagination. He doesn’t play the harp, rarely wears white, and whlle he’s no doubt modelled a toga or two in his day, does not resemble the Greek legends or angelic deities often attached to artistry’s mysterious element. Oh,no, that would be too easy. My muse is very much human, and a man at that: 5′ 7″ (he would say taller) of flesh, bone, stubborness and attention span swayed instantly by the scent of a football or the hint of cleavage. Yet in a job thrust upon him that neither of us predicted or chose, he offers a rare combination of wisdom, curiosity, and courage that has given rise to three books, will inspire at least four more, and reveals the world to both of us in moments of atomic detail. I have no gift to acknowledge the trust and sacrifice in assuming a role that is in complete defiance of the life he built, with no salary or job description, no office hours or fame. But the longest night does.

To explain that, we return to when the millennium was new and the longest day was his longest night. As summer blossomed from spring, the love of his life took her last breath and with it,  the light of his world. Years later, this fateful anniversary would bring author and muse together with one thing that could penetrate the depths of his darkness: his story in her words. Since then, my muse emerges as a child timid but fascinated by the wonders in our minds, scooping seashells of memories and netting fireflies of imagination to dump them proudly on my desk with a grin and a challenge. Presented with the words, he assumes the position of critical reader. Palms on thighs, eyes closed, he absorbs each syllable as I watch both page and cues. Leaning forward means he is challenging my assertions. Head tipped back shows his search for the images I suggest. Completely still means jackpot: he’s right there in a moment that was or could have been. “You’ve nailed it,” he’ll murmur. “I know,” I’ll reply, and we savour the words offered like sprinkles on a cupcake: not necessary, but nice.

With so much unspoken, the job is more easily dismissed than explained. “Not a muse, an agent,” he had huffed at first, silver head flashing its refusal under the fluorescent lights. “Well, if you’re not my muse, then as an agent you’ll starve,” I retort and he laughed, engaged by a new bridge connecting my world of artistry to his of commerce. Even now, after years of our meetings, I snicker as I imagine him with Scotch in hand, surrounded by conversation and cigar smoke, tightening his tie and his handshake with the introduction: “Yes, I’m a life underwriter, financial planner, and muse.” I try to picture the reactions, the requests to repeat that last part, to define the job, the terms, the benefits. Then, I admire his courage even more. For as real as he is, I too struggle with revealing that which is so natural between us to the narrowed views of those ‘out there’. How to explain the need for arguments with no winners, only a story clearer, smoother, energized by the rasping of our thoughts and words? How to honour the courage in offering one’s life stories to a critical world when thanks is dismissed with cool logic? “I’ve already lived the life,” he replies quietly. “I have nothing to lose by sharing what’s already been.” How to thank someone who endures author rants and reader indifference, juggles quarterly reports and galley proofs, while embracing each encounter with phone turned off and insight tuned in?

Above all, what gift is there to acknowledge his commitment to save me from myself? He teeters between a life that is and a life that could be, above the darkness we both fear, allowing me the freedom to explore, reunite, and reveal ourselves while keeping me from plunging too far and too fast. There is nothing I could buy, write, or promise that repays such dedication.

But the longest night can.

This year, my muse will spend its sparse daylight hours winging his way to a Christmas we all deserve: a holiday wih no boardrooms, calendars, or financial forecasts, only family, football and the bustle of a house devoted to peace on earth and goodwill toward men, women, children, and their stomachs. Before the longest night descends, he will be tucked into the warmth of a young family’s couch, with a new grandchild exploring her first Christmas and her Poppa with joyful, drooling abandon. It is the perfect start to a new season, and a fervent reminder of the light that can spring from darkness.

I will still mourn daylight’s loss with tantrums, Doritos and frequent naps, yet warmed by the image of my muse at rest I will learn not to worry when or if all will come to light, but appreciate the opportunities hidden in darkness.

After all, a season that spawned mulled wine can’t be all bad.

Merry Christmas, my muse.

Happy Holidays to all.

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From the mouths of babes and their favourite shirts

It was a Sunday morning fight I just didn’t need. Morning comes too early anyway, and the battle between my warm cozy nest and the rigid hardwood of a church pew was raging in my head long before Youngest Daughter twirled proudly in her self-made Sunday best: jeans and a T-shirt. Now, I have accepted that my willfull third-born will no longer tolerate the sweet dresses and matched outfits of toddlerhood. Main goal today is to get her to church with a Christian demeanour still intact. The Lord doesn’t care how you look as long as you show up, echoes in my head. Jeans I could live with. The shirt, however, was another story – a tiny pink tee with Tootsie candies proclaiming Let’s Roll!, guarded defiantly by its eight-year-old owner despite its faded fabric, cracked decal, and seams meant for a torse two sizes smaller. Bravely, I suggest another shirt. Eyes darken and lips extend in a pout that will ease only after someone cries. With a single bead of optimism, I align three lovely shirts on the bed, extolling their virtues as an auctioneer wooes his audience. This one has a butterfly, see? And this one is purple; you love purple. A glimmer of hope, and the pout relaxes. Maybe purple would be okay. It is my favourite colour, and the Advent candles are purple.

She wriggles out of the Tootsie Roll into a long-sleever with the word PEACE descending on its front. “You know,” she offers shyly, smoothing her hand over the letters, “the other shirt was getting a bit small. I just didn’t want to tell you.” I know, I reply. it is your favourite shirt. it’s just that you’re growing, and things change. She gazes at me. “This feels a lot better,” she chirps, eyes bright now in relief. You can keep the other one for play, I smile. She dashes to her room, then calls to me: can I put it in the bag to give away? You bet, I reply. We have pictures of her in her favourite shirt. That’s what is important.

What I saw in her lithe little body, adorned in polycotton that respected her new size, was relief not from the fabric but from the secret. To admit her shirt didn’t fit would mean to lose it. Say nothing, and no one would know. But her body knew and in our moments tgether, her mind realized it as well. In the safety of our conversation, she could reveal her secret, and learned that good things come when sharing a burden with someone you trust. Our mother-daughter relationship has been growing since she was conceived, and touchstones like these tell me we’re doing okay, and life is that much easier when we have places to share.

The author-reader relationship can also be an important arena for sharing. As writers, we help characters share their secrets and in the process, share a little bit of autobiography as well. As readers, we often shed our secrets in the safety of pages, in other people’s homes, lives, and realities that mirror or remind us of our own. As authors and readers, we find success when we build and protect that trust and strengthen the ability to share. We write and we read because it is important to us. It takes time, costs money, and insists we invest our feelings as well as our thoughts, but we continue to do it. We write and we read because as painful as it can be, it feels oh-so-good when it’s done. The secret is shed, our trappings swapped for something that fits and feels better.

There will be more shirts, and always, there will be memories.

Thanks to the reminder of a smart little girl, I’m pumped for more words as well.

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No time to talk, my brain is getting a massage

That is what I told myself the other day when a crowbar couldn’t wedge another event into my calendar. Massage was the most soothing word I could think of to keep my brain from dissolving into quivering globs of gelatin.

The rush began before sunrise, when my children descended from their cocoons sleepy, hungry, and demanding. I have no clean gym pants. Sign this permission form. Where is my clarinet?  By the time the yellow bus appeared I was ready for wine but the teenager needed a drive to school, across town and through road construction that has been half-done for six dog years and costs an extra half-tank of gas, each way, before heading into a publisher meeting where over liquid breakfast (tepid coffee) we generated a to-do list for me that outnumbered his list four-to-one, including item 5. Write next book. Then, it was off to a job that actually pays money, where I spent two hours listening to a new government program that could do great things if – yep – I started another to-do list. Lunch was at the junior high as an in-school mentor to two eighth-graders.   Still swallowing my sandwich, I dashed to afternoon crafts with a lovely group of ladies set to sip tea and stitch holiday pillowcases, until I had to leave mid-stitch to meet the yellow bus and refuel the youngest for dance.  Then pickups, supper, dishes, laundry, baths and an hour of TV before the house was finally quiet and I collapsed into bed.

As much as I yearned for sleep, my creativity flowed like sap from a maple tree. I longed to write. Why?

The day replayed again, except this time instead of a horror movie I saw a documentary and before I knew it, I learned something.

The time lost sitting in road construction was gained in conversation with my teenaged son, who chatted about music and braces and his excitement about the Christmas holidays.

The publisher’s coffee was lukewarm but our conversation was sizzling with the release of our new book and the possibility for our new ideas to take shape.

The government meeting: there was money and the will to use it. Time to propose a marriage of groups who for the first time are seeing the value of working together?

Mentoring: teen girls giggling with hopes, fears, and compassion for my attempts to master my new iPhone.

Craft afternoon: the generation gap really does shrink with age.

Immersed in sunshine then chilled in darkness, sap from the maple tree flows watery and colourless, with only a hint of the sweetness within until boiled and bottled, it becomes liquid gold.

Immersed in the moment, chilled in the air of transition and boiled by the constraints of time, the brain is massaged to savour each experience and reveals its sweetness in a flood of inspiration.

There is a point to the busy schedules. It just may take some boiling to find it. And a whole body massage or two, just to be sure.

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Music Monday: Spine-tingling mystery of Unchained Melody

I was watching The Wonder Years with that adorable little Fred Savage (yep, my Senior years are on the horizon) when I first heard the song. There he was, slow dancing with the love of his life Winnie Cooper in their school gym. As sweet as they were to watch, it was the soaring notes and the simple yet gripping flow between major and minor chords that to this day conjure up the TV image from so long ago. I relived that moment in 1990, when that gorgeous creature Patrick Swayze paid a visit to his pottery-making love in the movie Ghost. I’ve never been able to look at a pottery wheel quite the same way again, and the haunting memory of that song remains.

Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost (Paramount Pictures, 1990)

One of the joys of being a writer is being able to bring to life (or back to life) favorite memories and things to share with readers. Unchained Melody is one of those things. Our new book in the Finding Maria series, on the Scent of a Mandarin Moon, set for release later this year, includes a love scene between the two main characters where the strains of Unchained Melody are carried from a point unknown across a city street drenched in rain to wrap them both in a moment of impulsive, tempestuous connection. While I can’t share any more of ths story right now – but please stay tuned 🙂 – I can share a few new-to-me facts I discovered about the song:

What’s in a Name? Search or listen to the song lyrics and nowhere is the phrase Unchained Melody used. So, why this name for the song? As for many songs, this tune was birthed by a movie. Unchained, released in 1955, is the story of a convict torn between escaping prison to return to his family now or enduring the years of his sentence and sacrificing the years ahead with them to legally be with them in the end. Unchained Melody, written by Alex North with lyrics by Hy Zaret, is the lament of this prisoner for his wife. The movie soundtrack featured Todd Duncan on vocals, and since that time the song has been recorded in every genre from rockabilly to comedy, making it one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century. Pick an artist and he, she or they have probably recorded or performed it. Elvis? Check. Tom Jones? Of course. Queen? Yes, indeed. Even Cyndi Lauper, nicely grown out of her pop girl phase, has added a new dimension of haunting beauty to her new version. But the cover that carries my two characters away in a haze of passion is the one with which we are no doubt most familiar: the 1965 jukebox staple sung by Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers, which with his crystal-pitched vocals and Phil Spector’s soaring backgrounds can still shoot tingles down my spine, even after hearing it several hundred times over the last few decades. Try it and see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEshQf-tCJE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Songs tell stories in their own right. But also fascinating are the stories behind them, and the stories they give rise to, including mine.

I’ll be sharing hints of the new book on our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/FindingMaria, if you want to like and learn more. Meanwhile, thanks for joining in today and sharing in one of my favourite songs. Is it your favourite, too? What song makes your spine tingle?

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What I Missed in 24 Hours

… And how I made peace in my battle of solitude vs. parenthood

I enjoy travelling, always have, but it was a nice-to-do rather than a necessity. Once my first child was born, I didn’t set foot on a plane or foreign soil for over a decade. Two things have since happened to rekindle my travel opps: our increasing ages and my increasing awareness as a writer. My three children are now school-aged, intrigued by the world around them and fun to travel with (seriously), so our family trips have expanded from day trips to month-long treks west and a week in the sunny south. At the same time, with hands and time freed from diaper bags and baby carriers, I discovered that solitary travel -be it for an assignment, conference, or self-imposed retreat – provides a focus and rejuvenation that can complement but cannot be found in the daily grind of life.

With an empathetic and capable spouse at home, I can leave my family for brief periods with a clear conscience. My husband travels for work as well; we function as a team, whether home together or pinch- hitting in the other’s absence.  However, even though my children at 13, 11, and 7 are increasingly self-sufficient, a recent overnighter for me brought home how much can change in their young lives in a mere 24 hours.

I left home on Friday afternoon. That night:

  • My teenager played a piano sonata flawlessly, after struggling with the ending for  two months
  • My tween and her dad put the finishing touches on her costume for the school play, transforming her into a 19th century country schoolgirl and cementing her love for the performing arts. They emailed the picture, her grin wider than the brim of her straw hat. I smiled, stretched languidly in my pillowy queen bed, and then wished I was home.

On Saturday:

My youngest got to be, and I quote: “Door-Holder Girl, Put-the-Chairs-on-the-Deck Girl, (as they unpacked and set up our outdoor furniture), Miner Girl (crawling under the deck for the plant pots) and then,” her voice lowered for effect, “Senior Miner,” where with bike helmet firmly fastened, she tunneled under the deck again to help attach the cords for our outdoor fountain. She was still beaming at 9 p.m., when I hefted my suitcase through the door, home at last.

A few moments in time, affecting no one but those in the room. But, these were also milestones for three young lives, a perfect moment for each of them  in which their entire purpose in life was realized: milestones in which I was a participant, not as Drink Fetcher or Site Boss but as an audience. “Sometimes it’s good to be in the crowd, ” my son said to me once, when his theatre troupe got the night off to watch another cast perform. “You learn a lot being on the other side of the curtain.”

I didn’t miss the pizza: two slices were waiting for me in the fridge.  And I didn’t miss the point right in front of me. As inspiring as lush B&B rooms and seaside vistas and writing workshops can be, so to are the myriad of tiny little mundane moments that I spend a large portion of my days trying to cope with or work around. I can’t see the forest of aha moments for the trees of “I need …” and  “When’s supper?” and “Where’s my ballet skirt?” until I leave the forest. But just for a little while. The trees still need their mom. And I will always need their words of wisdom.

Do you have a need for solitude? How do you balance it with the demands of life? I look forward to hearing from you.

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When did my elders get so smart?

When did my elders get so smart?

It was a blue day: not in weatherman terms, with a cloudless sky, but in writing terms, where doubt oozes from every pen and blank paper stands ready to mock any futile efforts at recording anything worth repeating. This is part of the vocation, along with wine at 10 a.m. and perpetual poverty.
As a modern writer, who couldn’t find the corkscrew, I turned to the anonymous comfort of the Internet, hit StumbleUpon and sat prepared to be taken away.
Instead, I see this:
I beg you … To have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to live the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you could not live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future,you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer …
I was introduced to German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote of hope in love and solitude, setting down the exact words to needed to see 100 years before I realized I needed them.
Blue day inches to blue evening. Conversation with fellow author friend sinks deeply into purposes and responsibilities of life. Can a human being ever truly be happy? Can one truly belong to anyone or anything in the world in a body seemingly called to solitude? These were conversations leading to moods far too deep for any volume of wine to buoy. My friend, drawing on her benefit of years, offers me a gift.
Enter Anne Morrow Lindbergh. In my youthful naïveté I knew her only as the wife of Charles Lindbergh. In fact, she forged successful aviation and artistic careers not on the heels or even at the side of her famous husband, but independent of his vast shadow, charting her own destiny which included her devoted roles as wife and mother, but did not end there. In her struggle to make sense of the demands and choices in her busy life, she took refuge at a beach and wrote Gift From The Sea. Its analogy of a woman’s life cycle to the common yet mystical creatures de la mer was exactly what I needed to put words to my confusion. She wrote this in 1955, more than a decade before I was born. And, she quotes – wait for it – Rainer Maria Rilke.
My discovery in a day when I expected to find nothing spanned 100 years, two continents, and the prophetic genius of writers with the courage, foresight, and talent to preserve their thoughts.
This is what writers do. This is what the world needs not only to survive, but to thrive.
I do not expect my offerings to have the power or longevity of Rilke or Lindbergh.
But I am expected to try. With their help, I will write another day.
If I find my corkscrew, I may even write another year.