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| At the Dock Catherine Al-Meten Meyers |
All I remembered was feeling a knot in my stomach and a kind of "who do I think I am" feeling about starting the 30-day writing challenge. My first piece was entitled "Writing in the Now". Here is how I began:
"Writing, knowing that others are going to read what I write, is not unusual for me, but this type of writing is. I've enjoyed reading the pieces written about the individual writing group members’ experiences and the reflections of daily life experience--the simple and the profound. I'm not sure what I'm going to write here this month, but for today I'm going to focus on the 'now'."
From there I proceeded, and when I was done, I took a deep breath and waited. Waited for response. Unlike other kinds of writing, this was meant to be a starting point, an unfinished, unedited, uncensored piece of writing that attempted to dig up some relics of our past, some dream of the future, or some deeper sense of the now of our lives. It was meant to allow for going further with an excavation of our deeper selves, and so it did. One of the most unexpected pieces of the experience were the connections made through this experience. A connection that began when I began to receive response from what I had written.
I recall the excitement of the first feedback I got. Surprisingly, it was positive. More surprisingly, it didn't meet my expectation of being found out to be a fraud. One of the things that happens to us as writers, artists, or musicians is that kind of terror that we're just not going to measure up to some standard. I believe we all have a fear that what we feel so passionate about or what we have worked to shape, sculpt, arrange, or lay out, is somehow not quite good enough. That one fear can be the roadblock that stops many creative people from ever laying their work out to be received. It can even be what stops a writer from writing. However, on that day in early July two years ago, I took the leap, and have not been sorry.
Once other writers began respnding to what I'd written, I felt freed of fear. I also found a new voice within me...a voice that went deeper into memory, deeper into exploration, and beyond the limits and parameters that I had confined my writing to in the past. A kind of liberation happened, and at the same time, I began to develop some fairly deep communicaion with some of the other writers. People who identified with my experiences, or who found some kind of solace or humor in something I'd written. Two years out from that inital experience, I can honestly say I have some new friends, friends who are fellow writers, artists, healers, seekers, and men and women who put themselves out, who take the leap with me each time we write and share our words with one another.
The title of my book came from the vision I had each time I went to write with my group...a vision of a bunch of frogs coming to the lily pond each day. Each of us sitting on our lily pad, would sing out our songs. Soon our songs rang out across the pond and helped create a very special place to gather. This experience has been unique for me, for I am not much of a joiner. After many years of working with many people, my life as a writer has been much more solitary. The only way I can write is by making my life so. However, what feeds a writer's mind and soul, cannot be found just by being alone. After a while, we need to find those lily ponds where we can croak out our songs and find others who are singing as well.
And that brings me to where I wanted to go today. A few months ago I moved to a tiny town, only a few miles from where I'd been livng for the last 7 years. Just a few miles, but far from the energy and life of where I had been living. Usually it takes me a while to get acclimaed to a new home, a new place, and a new community. Slowly, I take my time setting up my new home, making myself at home, before getting to know the neighborhood and community around me. First venturing out to find the local places where I can shop, pick up a newspaper, or get a good cup of coffee. Or in my case, a cafe au lait made just right. For the first month after living here, I would drive back to the other town to do my grocery shopping or to get gas, or to visit my favorite coffee shop. And sometimes I'd just drive back and drive by those places to remind myself I did have a sense of community there. I could still feel at home there. However, I wanted to find out more about where I was now living. I didn't want to get stuck with a superficial impression of the place and never go deeper.
Slowly, I began developing a routine. The best of both worlds, I guess. Maintaining my yoga practice and teaching schedule, visiting the coffee shop at least once or twice a week, and going at regular intervals to pick up something I could only find in my old market. Of course I have family and friends in that town, so I go there often to be with them. And it's not like it's an hour's drive away. The difference between living in a town, for me, is the need I have to make myself at home. My new home, this little town at the end of the river on the edge of the coast, surrounded by water and forest, is my new home.
Getting to know the sights, sounds, smells, and energy of a place, can be full of surprises. The surprises here have included the quiet. My other home was very quiet. This place is even more so. My other home was full of beauty. This one is as well, but it's a different kind of beauty. Plants, animals, birds, and even the insects and bugs are different. Where I was was upstairs and surrounded by people--next door, downstairs, walking by and standing outside the windows carrying on conversations, walking dogs, occasionally erupting into midnight arguments when too much alcohol fueled some slight or rage. Here, it is quiet.Cars pass by out on the road, but they move by in a swish. My new home is ground level, and the only walking by is done by deer, elk, and the neighborhood cats. The wind howls and rages here at times. I'm out of touch with the rising and falling tides. My need to connect to those sea changes, finds me sitting by the water letting the headwinds blow my hair and sting my face with salty air.
Walking along the river, I spotted a small green and yellow snake coiled up, sunning on a rock. His diamond-shaped head perfectly still as I leaned over to get a closer look, he did not move. That is until I walked away. When I retraced my steps, he had disappeared. But we have met, and I look forward to meeting Snake again.
Squirrel, fat and bushy-tailed from a good winter, visited my deck, checking out my potted plants to see perhaps if there was anything worth chewing on. Need to remember to get some peanuts to put out for Squirrel. Wild geese have been flying in formation overhead this week, honking out at sunset as they get ready to fly into the lagoon near my old home. Now I find the geese at another point in their migration north. I know where they're headed. I will miss watching them land and take off from the river this year. The elk and deer must be somewhere else on their journey. Haven't seen them for a while.They'll be back. The old migration paths cannot be erased by houses, roads, fences, or peoples' lives.
One little building in particular has fascinated me. It looks like a little old white schoolhouse or church. White clapboard, listing slightly to one side, the sign above the door reads, Hammond Townhall. It currently houses the library. Loving libraries as I do, I've been wanting to stop in and see what is going on inside. I've heard it's going to be closed down, and the contents are to be moved to another building, a more modern one a little closer to the main highway. Before that happens, I wanted to be sure to go inside. Yesterday, instead of doing my laundry, I decided to visit the library instead.
Little did I know what a treasure awaited me inside. I was greeted by a woman wearing sparkly lapis-blue earrings and necklace. She took charge of greeting me and making me feel at home. She immediately began introducing me to everyone standing nearby, all of whom looked at me with a bit of suspicion. All that is except the library director, Nettie. Nettie walked me around the small, narrow building, showing me where to find books. She took me to each and every neatly organized bookcase, talking about authors we both loved, Anne Perry, Robert Parker. She won my instant approve when she marched me back to the compuer table where she showed me a large white notebook filled with authors' names and their works listed in chronological order of their publication date. Now maybe other libraries have this. Certainly you can look this up on Google, but here it was, printed out and put in alphabetical order. My Virgo Moon was in heaven. Chaos neatly organized!
Seated at the table in front of the computer terminals were three people. Two women and a man. All were in my age range, I think, though I'm never really sure about that. They too were friendly, and in the middle of the table was a huge cake surrounded by cupcakes, all frosted with a thick, pale orange icing flavored with fresh orange juice (this fact was shared by one of the women sitting at the table). In cursive writing someone had written on the cake in icing: For all the March Birthdays! I have a March birthday, so I was instantly in love with this little old library. One of the women, the one who had made the cake, were so kind and welcoming, offering me suggestions and tips about where to find things. There was an air of comfort, caring, and familiarity among these library people...one of those family affairs, where everyone knows your name.
After the initial sweep of the library and introductions, Nettie helped me get my new library card. I filled out the registrations, and felt compelled to tell her, "I can't remember my cousin's exact address. I always confuse the numbers." Nettie looked at the form in front of me, and said, "Oh Sandi, I used to substitute for her. She taught at the grade." Yes, it's that kind of area. Everyone knows someone you know or is related to someone you know, or was married to someone you know. It's so different from growing up and living in big cities where you could go days and weeks without ever seeing anyone you recognize. Here that's not the case. After giving me my new card, a refrigerator magnet and bookmarked, she proceeded to give me a real guided tour.
She showed me every nook and cranny. Along with showing me where things were and how they were organized, she also told me some of the stories of the little library's history. For starters, it used to be a military building on the grounds of the local army fort, Fort Stevens. The building had been cut in half (yes that happens a lot up here in the Northwest, or at least it used to), and one half had been brought to Hammond where it now resides. At first it was the local downhill, and then in the 1990's it became the town library. It has a fine collection of all types of books, many of which have been donated. The floor is sloped, as is often the case in old buildings sited on boggy land near the ocean or river. Nettie gave me her version of a "little tour" and when I finally thanked her and promised to come back to volunteer from time to time, we had spent over an hour together.
Why was this little deviation from the norm experience so important to me? Because our writing and creative lives are nourished by just some moments, such normal and unexpected twists and turns that turn out to lead us into the wardrobe and out the back door into a magic world of imagination and reality mixed up and ready to use to paint the next chapter. And so I've found such a magic land, and am sititng with a stack of books to explore. Seek out adventure in the ordinary, in the diversion or hunch that leads you astray now and then. And who knows, maybe there will be a cupcake with your name on it in the deal.
