Why I write. Because I have to! From all of the exposure that I received to so many different subjects in school over the years and enriching experiences outside of it, like ballet and piano lessons and trips to art museums and to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra play in Saturday morning Children’s Concerts, it was the written word that called me louder than anything else. I gobbled up Nancy Drew books as a pre-teen: I wanted stories!
I discovered my calling as a writer—and I believe that is what it is—at a young age. At around age 12, I created a weekly newspaper for the summer community around Analomink Lake in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania where my family had a cottage. Skip ahead a decade or more and I kept a daily diary on the two-month trip to India my Indian husband and I and our two-year-old son undertook in 1968-69 to present ourselves as a family to the Indian relatives for the first time. 50+ years later, that same journal became the basis of my first published book, “An Orchid Sari: The Personal Diary of an American Mom in 1960s India.” And even later, I was editor, writer, and proof-reader for 13 years as the administrative assistant to the president for publications at a seminary.
And then, in 2005, I discovered blogging after an Elderhostel trip to Alaska and continue that endeavor to the present. My blog posts from 2009-2012, along with my photos (another passion!) from that time, were turned into my first book about San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, “A Lifetime to Get Here.” You can see that I have always loved putting words on paper or more recently onto a computer screen.
Frequently, no matter where I am, things happen in my life that I feel are deserving of being written about and shared, especially living in San Miguel, although during the summer of 2022, back in Philadelphia, I wrote two stories about people and situations I encountered there.
I am all about stories, mine and others’, and the exciting news is that all of us have stories to tell! I love to share these adventures, these stories, with others, to see how they might unite us, and I’ve often been told one version or another of, “I could so identify with what you wrote. I have been there, too, experienced what you did, and have felt the same way you did about it.”
I also like to help others by what I write. I have read reviews of my book, “A Lifetime to Get Here” like, “This is a great book full of experiences that any newcomer would want to know about,” or, “I listened to your book on the drive down from Wyoming. I enjoyed it very much and was better prepared to navigate when I arrived.”
Bottom line, I write stories because I want to explain what is important to me. And what exactly is that? I believe in the utter importance of the everyday goings-on of life that have far greater meaning than may originally meet the eye. And I believe that it is the connections between people, especially disparate people, who share a very personal human experience that forms a bond between them, an involvement that translates to other people’s experiences and their reactions to them.
For example, during COVID, I made a trip to my local lavandería (laundry) to pick up my clean clothes and had an experience with the woman behind the counter that I could hardly wait to get home to write about, in that case in the form of a poem.
Another example occurred on one of my early morning walks in San Miguel during COVID. I had the pleasure of seeing, along with the attendant at the parking garage near my apartment, the first flights of several baby birds from their nest above the huge garage door under the watchful eye of their mother while two little ones remained in the nest, not yet ready to take the plunge. It was the young, Mexican attendant who excitedly pointed out to me the erratically-flying birds right in front of us, and afterwards, he told me with a huge grin on his face of his great joy in sharing that spectacle with me. How could I not write about that?
Then there is the story about the clerk, about my age, in my local papelería (stationery store), sharing boisterous laughter with me when I mistakenly asked for chiquititos moños (little tiny monkeys) rather than chiquititos monos (little tiny bows).
All of these seemingly-pedestrian interactions and so many others took place in the immediate vicinity of my casa with members of one of my beloved communities here in San Miguel, my neighbors, both residents and shop keepers. Another beloved community is the team of my editor and book designer with whom I’ve been working closely since 2016 through both work and personal challenges to produce four books, and yet another beloved community is, of course, my Unitarian Universalist congregation, about which I wrote frequently in “A Lifetime to Get Here.”
So, preparing this talk and thinking deeply about the question of why I write has enabled me to see that all of my stories are about the deep meanings in real-life experiences and about human bonds, and that is what makes me want to write.
In my talk about Why I Write, I mentioned that I wrote a poem about my experience at a lavandería in San Miguel. I would like to read that poem for you now.
A Singular Heroine
In the hierarchy of boring, unpleasant jobs,
working in a laundry has to be near the top of the list.
Clothes in all stages of filth are brought in
to be handled by women with few other options.
It’s essential work, but soul-sucking and repetitive,
and yet, at my lavandería in San Miguel, it is done well.
I am met with a smile and a greeting.
I am thanked when I produce exact change.
I am wished a buen día when I leave.
And the clothes are beautifully folded,
all the panties with the other panties,
the socks with the socks—all part of the job.
But, the laundry chica, far down on the pecking order,
proved herself a tower of a person
when, in these perilous times,
She tucked the 200-peso note I inadvertently left in a pants pocket
into my bag of clean laundry.
I never would have known.
She didn’t say a word,
probably had forgotten about it by the time I picked up my clothes.
But I will never forget it.
- UUFSMA service, 7/31/22