With gratitude to the writers who have inspired me and the readers without whom this would not be possible.
It began with a course I took toward the end of my college career called “Daily Themes.” As one would expect from the course title, our assignment for the entirety of the course was to write a 300-500 word “theme” every day. My first attempts were clumsy, mediocre at best – the first C’s I’d ever received in my life. But our professor, Dr. Ray McCall, was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. From him, I quickly learned how to write vividly, clearly, even at times eloquently. He used our themes as the text for the course, pulling out examples of what to do and what not to do from our papers, and writing copious and instructive notes on the pages we turned in every day. He taught me the importance of verbs. And he taught me how to express myself – one of the greatest gifts anyone could ever give, and something Chat GPT can never do. Over the course of those ten weeks, I fell in love with language and words, and from that time on decided what I wanted to do with my life was to write.
I took a course in journalism at a nearby university and thought that might be the path to writing I would pursue, but I wanted to write about more than news and obits -- something more in line with The New York Review of Books, but I didn’t have a clue how to enter that world. I decided I would support myself by teaching, but only as a means to write. However, as I entered the world of academia, I found myself becoming more of a teacher than a writer. I wrote professionally, mostly academic works, but I devoted my time and energy to my students, helping them as Dr. McCall had helped me to become more articulate and expressive writers, showing them how to bring their thoughts into clusters and from there into coherent arguments and insightful syntheses. How often did I write “Show, don’t tell,” on students’ papers? Or simply “Why?” when they needed to go more deeply into the bases of an argument. Through becoming better writers, they would grow to become better thinkers and, hopefully, more and more their true and authentic selves.
By the time I left the university, I was burned out on academic writing and dealing with the every-increasing demands and intrusions of publishers to write a certain way. I was done with writing and had moved on to other pursuits, but after a few years, the need to put my thoughts into words, my love of language, ignited again. My friend, Kathy, had just started writing a blog, and she suggested I might do that, too. I had been thinking about it, and with her encouragement I wrote my first post in this blog a little over four years ago. I had no idea then all the directions it would take, all the creative succor it would offer, the community it would provide. For all of you who have been such faithful readers, I am most grateful.
So in this, my 100th post, I wanted to write about the act, the art, of writing itself. My friend, Pamela, who until the day she died responded thoughtfully and in-depth to every one of my blog posts, early on told me that the word “blog” – a rather ugly word she thought – didn’t adequately express the content of my posts. Then at some point my friend and former colleague, Craig, another faithful reader, responded to one of my posts by calling me an ”essayist.” I don’t know when I’ve felt so honored. Essays have always been my favorite genre to read and among the most impactful writings on my life – from Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic,” Adrienne Rich’s “On Women and Honor,” Susan Griffin’s “The Eros of Everyday Life,” bell hooks’ “feminism: a transformational politic,” Greta Gaard’s “Explosion,” Linda Hogan’s “The Woman Who Watches Over the World,” Rebecca Solnit’s “Men Explain Things to Me,” to Albert Camus’s “Nuptials at Tipasa.” The list could go on. From the time I’d realized I wanted to be a writer, I most wanted to be an essayist but didn’t know where to begin. Now, at least in Craig’s eyes, apparently I had become one – as a variation perhaps on Rilke’s famous quote “Live the questions now. . . ” that used to hang above my desk -- paraphrased, ‘Write the words now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into becoming an essayist.’[i]
So it was with great humor I read in the foreword to the collection of E.B. White’s essays that Craig loaned me, “The essayist is a self-liberated man [sic], sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.”[ii] That rang so true that I simply had to laugh at myself. It does require a certain arrogance, or as White called it, “effrontery,” to think enough people would be interested in what I’m noticing or thinking about or simply experiencing to express it in writing and publish it for others to read. And the topics about which I’ve written have been just that – things that I’m thinking about or are happening to me – from the books I’ve loved to wildflowers, birds, hoarfrost, and seeds, to being a grandma, the deaths of family and friends, the latest political folly, and the climate crisis, to beauty, wonder, hope, and awe. So many of my blog posts – or essays – are simply a window into my mind at the moment. Why would these be of the general interest?
But then I heard the late Jane Goodall say, “I always wanted to write. I’ve loved writing, and I think I was given it on purpose, gifts, this gift; like, yes, I want to share them. I think it’s a wonderful thing to share.”[iii] And this by the poet Mary Oliver, “It’s a giving. It’s always — it’s a gift. It’s a gift to yourself, but it’s a gift to anybody who has a hunger for it. . . I wanted the ‘I’ [in her poems] to be the possible reader, rather than about myself. It was about an experience that happened to be mine, but could well have been anybody else’s.”[iv] Yes, this, a gift that begs to be shared, a unique experience in which the particular touches the universal. It is always with the hope that my words will do for someone else what others’ essays have done for me – articulate a ‘knowing’ that I hadn’t been able to put into words; invite a new way of seeing, a perspective, an insight, an ‘aha’, a ‘yes,’; create a sense of connection, of belonging, of being seen and understood, of friendship.
As Oliver says, writing is “convivial” – friendly, welcoming, an act of community. In her interview with children’s book author Kate DiCamillo, Krista Tippett said, “You’ve said that reading is communal, even if it’s one person. And you’ve also talked about how, as a writer, that still, the reader finishes the book,” to which DiCamillo responded, “Yeah, absolutely. It’s not done until somebody that I never know and will never talk to and will never meet reads it. That’s when it’s done.” She went on to quote Ursula LeGuin’s “The Operating Instructions, ”’ . . . though you’re usually alone when you read, you are in communion with another mind.’”[v] What a lovely thought. I’m hoping that as people read these meanderings of my mind, we are in communion with each other.
Of course, I do attempt to do more than meander in these posts. I do take care to construct them in ways that are clear, concise, and compelling; inviting and insightful; literate, learned, and lyrical, and yes, pleasurable and playful with words. And though the topics I take on are often difficult and disheartening, I try to include in each some words of hope or appreciation, and to balance these with posts on every day delights, because I do believe what is good and beautiful in the world and in the human condition far outweigh the negative, and it is important to be reminded of these lest we forget and give up on it all in despair. There is so much to admire in the world.
So many writers talk about their work as a matter of paying attention, and attention is the most generous form of love. As DiCamillo said of E. B. White, “E. B. White loved the world. And in loving the world, he told the truth about it — its sorrow, its heartbreak, its devastating beauty. He trusted his readers enough to tell them the truth, and with that truth came comfort and a feeling that we are not alone.” She went to talk about her own task as a writer, “I think our job is to see and to let ourselves be seen. I think our job is to love the world. Love. . . It is a sacred task. It really is. And I feel so fortunate to get to do it, . . . .”[vi]
I feel so fortunate to get to do it. I am so grateful to everyone who has participated in this communal act with me – whether as an occasional reader, a regular responder, or someone who has read and perhaps found an insight in just one post. And here I would invite you, please, to share with me, either in a message, an email, or in a comment, what in the previous 99 posts have been helpful, insightful, funny, moving to you; one way they have helped you feel less alone; one way they have extended your own thoughts or invited you to think in new ways or raised questions, or that you have simply enjoyed. Do you have favorites? Do you have topics you wished I’d explore or explore more? I’d love to hear from you, and even if I don’t, I appreciate you being out there.
In convivial friendship, Beth.
Sources
Camus, Albert. Lyrical and Critical Essays. Ed. Philip Thody. Trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. New York: Vintage Books, 1970.
DiCamillo, Kate with Krista Tippett. “On Nurturing Capacious Hearts.” Podcast. March 17, 2022.
Kate DiCamillo — On Nurturing Capacious Hearts | The On Being Project
Gaard, Greta. The Nature of Home: Taking Root in a Place. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007.
Goodall, Jane with Krista Tippett. “On Being.” Podcast. August 6, 2020. Jane Goodall, in Memoriam – What It Means to Be Human | The On Being Project
Griffin, Susan. The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender and Society. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1996.
hooks, bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End Press, 1989.
Hogan, Linda. The Woman Who Watches Over the World: A Native Memoir. New York: WW Norton & Co., 2001.
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1984.
Oliver, Mary with Krista Tippett. “’I Got Saved By the Beauty of the World.’” Podcast. February 15, 2015. Mary Oliver — “I got saved by the beauty of the world.” | The On Being Project
Rich, Adrienne. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978. New York. W.W. Norton & Co., 1979.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Trans. M.D. Herter, New York: WW Norton, 1934
Solnit, Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me. San Francisco: Haymarket Books, 2015.
White, E.B. Essays of E. B. White, Foreword. New York: Harper & Row, Pub., 1977, vii.
[i] Rilke’s original language is, “Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day to the answer,” 35.
[ii] White, vii.
[iii] Goodall, Jane with Krista Tippett. “On Being.” Podcast. August 6, 2020.
[iv] Mary Oliver — “I got saved by the beauty of the world.” | The On Being Project
[v] Kate DiCamillo — On Nurturing Capacious Hearts | The On Being Project
[vi] Ibid.