GRATEFUL


I have this quote by Barbara Kingsolver in my notebook that says: "No subject is too private for good fiction if it can be made beautiful and enlightening." I clipped it from Reader's Digest but it originally appeared in the NYT. I was thinking about that quote as I was driving along the highway on July 3rd.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned that I work with disabled children and adults. I don't like using that word "disabled" but for now, suffice it to say that I work with physically and mentally challenged adults and children. Now, stressful as it may be, I have the good fortune of working from home so I only have to go out and interact with people every once in a while. I say fortunately b/c if you know anything about working in the healthcare industry it can be quite depressing after a while. Anyhow, I received this new referral -- a woman in her early thirties, gun shot victim. My first thought was that it was something drug related. "Here we go again," I thought to myself, getting dressed in no particular hurry. What I learned later is that she is the mother of three young children, a single parent working full time to support herself and her children, average citizen, coming home from the beauty salon and caught in random cross fire. She is paralyzed from the neck down and is fully dependent upon a ventilator for life. She has only the ability to move her head --- that's it.

My first thought, and I mean first thought, was my children: what the hell would I do if something like that happened to me? My second thought was a scolding -- to myself for having judged this woman before I'd even had all the facts.

Now, I'm a writer's writer. I believe that everything is a story. Barbara Kingsolver's quote kind of re-affirmed that for me. I am never without a pen and a piece of paper because stories always seem to find me. In fact, in my purse are both my writing journal and a set of index cards because my Musze knows that I am equipped no matter where I go and she often visits me when I'm on the go. Yea, nice sense of humor she has. Anyhow.....as I was driving home and thinking about this woman I thought about Barbara's quote. Where is the story in this? I asked myself. This is not a story. This is a tragedy that could happen to anyone of us at any given time. No, this was not a story I wanted to tell or even entertain. That's it, I told the Musze, leave it alone.

But nothing this powerful can escape the ready mind. When I say ready mind, I am speaking about the mind that is open to infinite wisdom and possibility....the mind that ponders, dreams, wishes, stretches possibilities....that's the kind of mind I have....always thinking. Anyhow, this woman has not escaped me. And, like my first short story in which the narrator nagged the hell out of me until I wrote the story down....this woman is sitting in the back of my mind, waiting patiently for me to tell her story. Now, how will I do it? Will I speak somewhere about gun violence? Am I supposed to write an essay? Or is this a piece of fiction I should develop? Should she be put in the play that I've started sketching (more about that in another post). I don't know. I really don't. And until I do, I have to just let it alone.

I share this because I think that to be born with the gift of writing is such a tremendous blessing. Beyond the fame of having one's book on a shelf or being selected by a bookclub ... writing is so much deeper than that. Anyone can be famous...look at the clowns on the evening news. Jump off a building and BINGO! you're famous.
But to write a story (which I believe almost every story is to some degree degree autobiographical) and to take something tragic and turn it into something beautiful or moving or enlightening or empowering.....that's a tremendous blessing.

I am so grateful for my life. For my children. For my husband and my family. Beyond that, I am so grateful to be on the wisdom journey that I am on. I am grateful for the stories that seem to come from absolutely nowhere ..... but I'm learning that they DO come from somewhere.
I am grateful to be writing and recording and reading and listening. I am grateful to the elders -- Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston --- whose quotes cover my wall and encourage me to keep along on this journey. I'm grateful for Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye, Erykah Badu and India Arie, Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis....Man, I'm so grateful to be alive.

:::peace:::
angel