The Writing Life

The Writing Life

I’ve been writing for as long as I’ve been able to hold a pencil. Ideas would fill my head and I would race to get them on paper. It’s a gift, but sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have it. I’ve been thinking about writing lately thanks to a course that I took last week while attending a Directors’ conference for work. It was a simple course on how to teach writing. But those of us who have ever taught writing know that there is nothing simple about it.

About 25 of us sat around a table taking turns introducing ourselves. Though we all described ourselves as teachers or directors, few of us used the term, writer. I was one of the few. After the introductions were over our teacher asked us why or why not we considered ourselves to be writers.

A few points emerged. We believed that to earn the name, writer, a person had to be published or had to enjoy the act of creating through writing. But slowly other ideas began to emerge. We realized that we all wrote something, many things, every day: e-mails, grants, journals, blogs, letters, and on and on. One of the most interesting phrases that kept coming up was, “putting pen to paper.” I don’t know if it was because we were all old school or if being a writer was intrinsically tied in our minds to a quill and parchment. People were insistent on making the distinction between writing on a computer and writing with a pen and paper. It made me smile.

One person who had said earlier that he was not a writer revealed that he wrote a blog everyday. I blurted out, “So how can you say that you are not a writer?!”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess maybe I am.”

After our discussion the one common point that remained was that to be a writer you had to enjoy the act itself. We let that realization stand on its wobbly doe legs and moved on. All but me. I believed that we were all writers and the enjoyment or discomfort of writing arose not from inborn talent but from the way we had been taught.

I was lucky. I had teachers who nurtured me, pushing me forward. I saw my poems published in school news papers and literary magazines and that encouraged me further. Later when my first article was printed in the Canton Citizen I thought I had died and gone to Shakespeare heaven. But once I started working for the Citizen my very wise editor taught me that being a writer meant accepting responsibility not only to the craft itself, but to the community. It meant taking on the role of bard, recorder of history. It’s been many years since Beth told me that and last week in the selfish rush of my life, I had forgotten it. And I almost didn’t pay homage to a wonderful lady who died too soon.

When I heard that Peggy Simons had died, I stood frozen, shocked. Though we hadn’t been close friends, I had known her as a warm, graceful, elegant woman during the times that I had been lucky enough to be in her company. The first time I saw her was at a library fund raiser being held at the Blue Hills Country Club to raise money for the library’s renovation.

A live auction was underway. A trip to Disney on Ice was up for bid and the competition was brisk. But the many bidders were no match for one very determined lady. I watched as she raised her number again and again, a smile on her face as if she knew that the prize was already hers. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop looking at her and I decided that I had to speak to her afterwards.

I asked her why she had wanted that prize so very much. She smiled as she answered me, “Why it’s for my grandchildren, of course. We’re going to have a wonderful time together.”

From then on no matter which event I was attending I could always spot Peggy immediately. I came to know her warm smile, her light laugh, the way she gave you her entire attention. I was enchanted. We met at AAUW gatherings, library events and the Audubon’s Visual Art Center galas. She never missed them. I still remember the first one that was held at the VAC. Peggy was one of the garden club volunteers who designed the floral masterpieces that graced the rooms. She was working on an arrangement that would sit below a huge autumn painting in the museum, when I came upon her the morning of the event. She sat on the floor gathering materials, looking like one of her grandchildren, so engrossed in her art and obviously enjoying it so much. And the last time I saw her was at a VAC gala. That is how I’ll remember her, always there to help a town institution, looking lovely, smiling, enjoying the people around her. Peggy I will miss you. And to think that in the mad dash of my life I almost didn’t craft the words to tell you good-bye.

It was Beth who gave me the gentle nudge. Beth who reminded me that the words may come silently while sitting in a lonely room but they should be released out loud to share, in joy.