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Just over a year ago, I hit the wall. I\u2019d been writing for months, throwing away more pages than I kept, feeling less sure of myself and what I was doing with every passing day. I had a deadline, the end of March. But I wasn\u2019t at all sure I had a book.<\/p>\n
Two days after New Years, with both sons back at school, I flew to Florida and set up camp in the guest bedroom of my parents\u2019 house. My mom, keeping her promise not to tempt me with distractions, went about her carefree retiree\u2019s life. Meanwhile, I holed up in my self-created bunker, sitting cross-legged on the bed for hours on end, bent over my laptop, pretending no one would ever read what I was writing. My immediate goal was not to send words out into the world, but to be quiet and disciplined and attentive enough to find out if I actually had anything to say.<\/p>\n
Now, twelve months later, the book that finally began to take shape during those weeks is in the bookstores. The irony of the title Magical Journey,<\/a> of course, is that I didn\u2019t actually go much of anywhere, except in search of a bit of solitude and silence. Sometimes the most challenging journeys aren\u2019t the ones that require backpacks and sturdy shoes, but rather a willingness to turn inward, to seek something deep and as yet unformed within ourselves. And sometimes, as the last two weeks have revealed to me, it is the work done in lonely isolation that ultimately forges and affirms our most essential human connections out in the world.<\/p>\n This morning, home again after a flurry of nonstop travel and bookstore appearances, I paged through the journal I kept last winter. Every day, I attempted to clear my mind and face my fears by writing longhand in a notebook before turning on my laptop and confronting my manuscript. A few excerpts from those arduous, uncertain days exactly a year ago:<\/p>\n \u201cI am so slow. What I\u2019ve written is probably not terrible. I\u2019m trying to convince myself that it is at least good enough. Yet moving forward feels really hard. What is the right attitude? Maybe just to try to keep on writing without judging, to think my thoughts and feel my feelings, and get something down on the page, and then decide later whether it\u2019s any good or not.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And this:<\/p>\n \u201cThe slowness, the uncertainty. What am I learning from this process? That in my writing, first and foremost, I must put my faith in the truth. That the truth is mundane, embarrassing at times, difficult to distill clearly, yet still worth reaching for. That the only way through is through. That it doesn\u2019t get easier. That living wholeheartedly can mean going within, rather than without. Not fun, exactly, but wholehearted nonetheless.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And also:<\/p>\n \u201cSo strange to be in a time of life, a place, where Steve and Henry and Jack can all be living separate lives in different places. They are doing just fine away from me; I\u2019m the one who feels the loss of all that used to be. All I<\/strong> used to be. Guess that\u2019s what it\u2019s been like for my own mom for years now. Perhaps I\u2019ll get used to it. I feel alive in different ways \u2013 alive when I\u2019m needed at the center of my family, making dinner or having a heart-to-heart with one of the boys, keeping all the balls in the air. And alive in a totally different way now, in solitude, when all the structure and to-dos fall away, and I\u2019m left with my own thoughts, my own demons and dreams, my own inner landscape. Time slows. There is nothing to do but honor my commitment to keep at this, uncomfortable and hard as it is. But I wonder: to write from this vulnerable place, to be who I really am on the page \u2013 is this in itself some kind of path or calling? Perhaps, for now anyway, it is. And perhaps, if I can just stick it out, it will even lead to joy. Or at least lead me back out of myself, with some sense of where I\u2019m meant to go next.\u201d She\u2019s right, of course. We have to step out on that high wire again and again, even though we teeter with every step, even though we\u2019re dogged by insecurity: \u201cMaybe it won’t work. . . . Maybe it will suck. Maybe I’ll waste my time and precious energy on a piece of prose that will be dead on arrival.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t suppose there\u2019s any way to avoid the inexorable loneliness of the process, the feelings of frustration and powerlessness that come at the end of a day in which the only thing you really accomplished was staying put in your chair. Still, I wish that when I was sitting alone with myself in that Florida bedroom, I could have flashed forward a year, to the joyous scene last week in a hotel room in Nashville.<\/p>\n Every single woman from my book group had flown in earlier in the afternoon to celebrate the launch of Magical Journey<\/a>\u00a0with me and to attend my reading at Ann Patchett\u2019s beautiful bookstore, Parnassus<\/a>. On that first evening, we were all gathered together, toasting our trip, our thirteen years of books and lives shared, and the publication of this new memoir of mine (despite the fact that the work of writing it had kept me from attending a single meeting last year.)<\/p>\n The conversation soon turned to vulnerability, and risk, and the importance of sharing our stories, even the painful ones. After all these years together, we trust one another completely, hold little back, know that we can close the door and bare our souls in safety. And yet, as my friends began to share their first reactions to my book, we found ourselves talking as well about taking risks in public and on the page. And how, perhaps, in taking some risks myself, I\u2019ve cleared a space in which other women might be more willing to share their own stories, or at least come to feel a little less alone.<\/p>\n This, it seems to me, is the reason any writer undertakes the speculative work of memoir. Not so much to tell \u201cwhat happened,\u201d as to illuminate the slow, halting process by which we learn to make our peace with what is. And in that vulnerable revealing, in the stumbling, wayward truth of that story, lies something that is worth offering: not the gift of what we have accomplished but rather the gift of who we really are.<\/p>\n To be vulnerable on the page is indeed a risk \u2013 hang yourself out on the line, and anyone can come along and take a swing at you. Yet my own experience over these last two weeks has been the opposite. People are kind, and words build bridges. As I\u2019ve met and talked with readers in Connecticut and Nashville and Washington, DC, and as I\u2019ve read and responded to the letters and Facebook messages and emails from strangers, I\u2019ve been moved deeply by the stories women have shared with me, joyful stories of change and growth, but also intimate stories of loss and hardship, suffering and grief. Stories told in confidence within this safe space, a space created by kinship and kindness and courage. Publishing a book, any book, is an act of faith \u2013 in oneself of course, but in one\u2019s readers even more. How humbling and gratifying it is to have that faith returned a thousandfold.<\/p>\n I would not want to relive last January, all those days spent, as Dani says, \u201cin the teeming, writhing darkness,\u201d trying to beat back my own self-doubt long enough to make something lasting and sturdy out of words. But I\u2019m glad now that I did it. What I\u2019m learning, I think, is something one of my most admired writers, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, knew all too well.<\/p>\n \u201cI do not believe that sheer suffering teaches,\u201d she writes in Gift from the Sea<\/em>. \u201cIf suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.\u201d This, it seems to me, is the work of the writer: finding something of value to add to the suffering. Sometimes, yes, it is isolating, to dwell in that place of risk and revelation. And yet what we find on the other side is so worth the effort: community, connection, kinship, healing. Nothing less than the road back to grace.<\/p>\n To all of you who are supporting the birth of this book with your heartfelt letters, your messages, your words of encouragement, your online reviews and your real live attendance at my readings, a most heartfelt thank you. I am honored to be a part of this ongoing conversation, to meet you and to share the path with you, to be reminded that none of us journeys alone, that we are all connected, that my story is your story — and vice versa.<\/p>\n Building an audience is the writer’s job once the book is published — and that’s what I’m up to now. \u00a0(A far cry from that writerly solitude of a year ago.) \u00a0Want to help me spread the word?<\/p>\n Here are three things you can do:<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Write a brief review on Amazon<\/span><\/a>. 2. \u00a0Like my page on Facebook<\/a><\/strong> and share posts with your friends.<\/p>\n 3. Share the book!<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong> (One of my favorite stories: A reader wrote to tell me she was ordering five copies for friends for Valentines Day.\u00a0 No sooner had she placed her order than an Amazon rep called to ask if there had been some mistake.\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d she replied, \u201cI loved this book, so I\u2019m buying more for my friends.\u201d\u00a0 The Amazon clerk read the description and said, \u201cIt does sound good.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to buy it too!\u201d\u00a0 Talk about word of mouth!)<\/p>\n Also, check my Events<\/a><\/strong> page to see if I’m coming to a bookstore near you. I’m visiting lots of independent bookstores — we need these stores in our towns, and they need our business to survive. \u00a0(This week I’ll be in: \u00a0Concord, NH<\/a>; Portsmouth, NH;<\/a> Manchester, VT<\/a>; and Cohasset, MA<\/a>.)<\/p>\n If you haven’t read Priscilla Gilman’s probing interview<\/strong> with me, Click Here<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n A nice review from the Chicago Tribune (Editor\u2019s Choice)<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nYesterday, my friend Dani Shapiro<\/a>, wrote a thoughtful, lovely post<\/a> about the difference between taking risks in life and on the page. Most of us, as she points out, will go to any length to keep our loved ones safe. Learning how to assess risk is part of growing up; making prudent calls, at the heart of every mother\u2019s job description. And yet, says Dani, \u201cWhen it comes to the writer\u2019s life, risk is what it\u2019s all about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
News from the road. . .<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
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