I'm reading!

When I lived in North Carolina, I took writing workshops from a wonderful writer and woman named Gilda Morina Syverson. She was encouraging and helpful in and out of the workshops as I wrestled with the idea of getting my MFA, and finally applied and began my program (she also wrote one of my recommendations!). She was incredibly well tuned in to all of her students' work, which was incredibly varied. When I teach, I always try to channel Gilda--her calm, her energy for each person's story, her drive to help us make our writing better, her ability to keep the group on track. My fellow writers in her groups always shared fascinating stories, no matter how ordinary they seemed on the surface. One of the toughest things about leaving Charlotte two years ago was knowing that I left behind a great mentor and peers.

Thankfully, Gilda and I have kept in touch, and there have been many times that I've emailed her to vent, ask advice, or tell her about a small writing/teaching victory. (And to congratulate her on the publication of her own memoir, My Father's Daughter: From Rome to Sicily. Check it out!) She's also the one who encouraged me to get back to journal writing, even--especially!--in the most chaotic of times. Even 250 miles down the road, I'm lucky to have her.

And now I get to return ("for one night and one night only!") to take part in a memoir reading along with my fellow students, not far from my favorite little town on earth. I'm really looking forward to reading my piece, can't wait to hear what others will share, and I'm so grateful to still be considered a student of Gilda's. If you're in the area on October 22, I'd love to see you there!

Birthday thanks for my husband, who brings extra to the ordinary.

Today's your birthday, and you think it's pretty ordinary.

No hullabaloo here. You don't like surprises, you buy yourself the things you want, you're going to make your own dinner because that's better for both of us, and I couldn't even order a cake without checking with you to make sure we got the right flavor.

Yeah, it's a pretty ordinary Thursday.

And yet. You make ordinary best. You make ordinary more.

When I turn the corner, I praise the ordinary glory of your car in the driveway, food on the counter, Thirty Rock on the TV, and you with your glass of milk in your grandmother's chair. Or I give thanks for the sound of your engine cutting off, your door shutting, the key in the lock. I rejoice in our evening rituals, in our quiet talks in bed (even when you're trying to go to sleep for your early wake up call), one of my favorite joys of married life. The talks shot through with deep knowing, even on the surface, even though there's still so much to learn.

You make ordinary an exploration.

You take in my worries and walk them back, deescalate, calm. Strong arms, strong words, strong heart. You stand tall on the mound and play the game with all you've got, but losing doesn't defeat you. When you were knocked to the lowest of lows, you stood up again with even more courage.

You make ordinary a gift.

You say that you have the humor of a five-year-old (how old are you turning today...?), and yet you are one of the oldest souls I know. Typically, you waffle in between the two, which never ceases to make life interesting.

You make ordinary fascinating.

Speaking of waffling, when we wake up on Saturday mornings you ask me, "What do you want for breakfast?", then dart around the kitchen and set my tea water brewing as I'm still stirring in bed. Sometimes, you decide you're going to cook two full meals in one day, filling the house with smells from a true Cajun kitchen of which your grandmother and aunt would be proud. You are steeped in family, and all that it means and matters.

I never thought a Sunday morning grocery run would be one of the most enjoyable parts of the week, striding jauntily into your happy place long before most people are awake, as we team up to figure out meals and grab what have become our staples, greeting the cashiers and managers that we now know by name. In church, you take my hand for the Lord's Prayer, because it's what you did growing up.

You make ordinary my prayer.

On a long drive, you hold us steady, and when it's my turn to take the wheel, even your sacked-out presence by my side is a comfort. When we travel, you're organized yet flexible, seeking awe and beauty, branching out from beloved routine.

Even when we are away from our ordinary, you make it feel like home.

Maybe longtime married people are chuckling at this post and saying that my joy in our ordinariness will fade. Maybe one day, with children and dogs and a mortgage and the pieces of life we don't yet have, the ordinariness of the simple, single couple will sound like the most marvelous, extraordinary thing in the world. Maybe it will.

And yet, our ordinary has already changed in these nearly six years, shifting in place, career, daily schedule, knowledge of one another and the world. We've had challenges; of course there will be more. We've had gladness and sorrow; of course there will be more.  

But in every day with you, there's ordinary. And you transform ordinary into something extra.

Happy birthday, love.

Abundance.

Thanks for indulging me for a selfie, friends! 

"Claire, how many styles of writing are there?" A question from my friend after writing group the other night.

My friend may have been looking for a more specific answer, but the following words immediately popped out of my mouth: "Well, I think there's probably as many styles of writing as there are people in the world." 

We had just come from an hour and a half of sharing our words--starting with a writing prompt about a fall memory, followed by four pieces that individuals had written outside of our gathering. I marveled, as always, at the wonderful variety--in subject matter, voice, length, point or lesson shared. Perhaps especially in our pieces about fall--everyone putting pen to paper or fingers to keys for the same ten minutes, given the same subject--I smiled at our diversity of reflections. People often feel led to preface their piece by saying, sometimes apologetically, "Well, I took the prompt a little differently..." But that's the last thing they need to be apologetic about.

Over Labor Day weekend, I attended a panel at the Decatur Book Festival called "The Life of Writing and the Writing of Life." My first response was that it was too short--only 45 minutes--to cover the many topics that fall under the umbrella of that subject. But a big chunk of the conversation between Richard Nash and Yale professor Amy Hungerford was that of abundance and scarcity in terms of writing, especially in terms of being published. We produce far more books than society could ever deal with, they said. And, of course, for all the books that are produced, how many thousands upon thousands never do?

In that panel, they also talked about how someone's piece can be stumbled upon, discovered almost by accident, that accidents are part of the way that culture--what books happen to be published and assigned in high school and therefore ingrained in our collective psyche--comes to be formed. They asked: What kinds of cultural conditions allow writing to happen, and what conditions thwart writing?

This was a fascinating conversation that I wish could have gone on and on. But it also led back to a conversation I had with another friend and client recently, an older friend who has recently made the brave and wonderful decision to record life on the page. "How do you become a writer?"

"Pretty simple," I said. "You write."

"So I write a lot of letters, and I'm a writer?"

"Well, in a sense, I'd say yes. I guess I should amend my original response to say, if you are engaging with whatever you are writing--if you are making an effort, if you get into the process, discovering new things about yourself or others...You're a writer."

Yes, I continued, there is the distinction between writers and published writers, and those two journeys--although even that can become blurred these days with the rise of self-publishing. But in the moment, in the process of writing, we can't think about that. We shouldn't. We should write for writing's sake, for the uncovering of what came before, or what is happening now. 

"Abundance breaks more things than scarcity." During the DBF panel, Nash quoted this from Craig Sherky. That means, Nash went on, when we have an abundance of words, of writers, more get left behind in terms of recognition or readership. Fewer people's words are lifted up into our general consciousness.

But I have to stand up at my minuscule microphone, in the midst of billions on the Internet, for just a moment, and say: That isn't the point. I rejoice in the abundance of words, because they are all unique to the human beings writing them. I rejoice in the abundance of human beings who feel like they have a story to tell, because they do, and someone will benefit from it, even if it is only the writer her/himself. That's one of the many reasons I love leading writing groups and working with people who have made the choice to hash out life on the page. Every human's story, their many stories, are fascinating, personal and yet at the same time, universal.   

The styles of writing are limitless. So are the people they belong to. We won't encounter all of them in our lifetime, but for the ones we do, let's pay attention. Let's listen, and read, and try to understand along with them. And let's be inspired by those who are telling their stories, so that we might find the courage to tell our own.

An abundance of stories--I can't see a single thing wrong in that.