Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The woman who, one year ago today, was rifling through her storage unit looking for The Writers Book of Days as her daughter flew to Africa, is today in St. Louis, walking up and down rows in Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery, looking for her lost grandparents’ graves. One was located: Her father’s father’s stone, with his Hebrew name: Elazar ben Avraham Moshe. There is more searching to be done tomorrow, in the neighborhood where they lived (the Ghetto), for the sites of their homes and the synagogue where they were married.
A year of blogging from The Writers Book of Days comes to a close. I have missed days, and many days the writing was just plain. But it wasn’t meant to be masterpiece writing — just a sort of sketchpad and most of all, a year of commitment. And here I still am.
In this year — well, half-year actually, as I started in January — I wrote 200 pages of rough draft of a manuscript. (I still have plenty more to go.) It is the product of another sort of daily practice: 500 words a day, M-F. Very doable. Since my crotchety, flimsy printer can’t handle such a job, I sent the file to Kinko’s, where they printed it and put it in a nice brown box. It sits on my table and looks like something. I try to keep believing it could be true — that I could finish a book. But that’s daunting, so I’ll keep doing it in daily bits. I’ll let go of the outcome and concentrate on the practice. My job is to “just show up.” The important stuff, the connections, the inspiration, when it comes, it comes as a gift. And very importantly, I’ve been engaged with this idea and excited about it for years.
In the fall I am registered for a class on Beginning Writing for Children, and I’m excited about that, too. And I keep working children’s books into my reading list.
All in all, it has been a decent year in the world of writing. Nothing published — OK, never mind — my first published poem, which was in Southwest Journal, will be in an anthology of SW Mpls. poetry, coming out in September. It was inspired by the subject I started my blog with: the flight of my daughter across the world.
But what has made it a decent writing year has been not finished product, not polished pieces, but a habit of daily practice. Musicians know they need to do it. Writers do, too.
After a rocky late summer and autumn of ’09, I am grounded again, for the most part. My grief at my various losses has calmed, though the emotions, the awareness, the passions, the lessons, thank God, still live. I am grateful for so much.
Thank you, blog, for being there. Thank you, Sun candle, for awakening my senses, for bringing me back to moments of coziness and peace. Thank you, readers, who have checked my blog every day. I think there has only been one day of these 365 that no one has checked, and that felt lonely. So thank you for being more faithful than I have been, for reading these often mundane little blog entries, because it means you have cared about this project, that you cheer me on, you’ve kept me going. If no one read, I don’t know if I could have kept writing.
I may be wrapping up Promises to Keep, but no, I don’t think I’m done blogging. I’m a lifelong journaler. But this year I think I’ll do something different, pure fun. Look for a cooking blog, one that is peppered with odd fun little things. I’m thinking of a title, and when I do and when I start, I will post the link from here.
Adieu to this sweet year. — Barbara
