A poet friend from home called the other day. We had a great conversation about what we were doing. One of the topics of our visit reminded me of a strange message that came to me when I was still wondering whether becoming a writer was even possible. I had so many doubts. It seemed like too much of a dream to even try.
I’m reminded me of my very first writing workshop taken in the early 2000s. It was a one-day affair, with about twelve of us participating. One of my classmates was a young woman who seemed a bit strange to me. When introducing ourselves, she said she was the Fifth Generation in her family and her job was Chronicler. She implied she’d lived other lives but didn’t go into it more than that.
At the end of the workshop, we gathered in a circle to share what we’d learned and what direction we planned to go. I gave my usual simplistic answer: I’d keep writing and learning. When it was the strange woman’s turn to speak, she leaned forward in her chair, looked directly at me, and said, “I’ve been sent here to give you a message.”
I sat back and thought, HUH??????
She stared at me and said, “This is the message. The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be. Because of all that I may become, I will close my eyes and leap.” She sat back in her chair and finished by saying, “That’s the message I was sent here to give to you.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I got goosebumps. The instructor and other students were as dumbstruck as I was. I stammered out something and asked her to write the message down so I wouldn’t forget it. She did. I still have that piece of paper she wrote on. After that class, I never saw or heard from that lady again.
I’ve kept that saying close to my heart after that class., but I put being a writer way on the back burner. In the years after that workshop, my working life slowly incorporated technical writing into my jobs, and it became my favorite part. When I got my dream job as a technical writer/editor, I felt like I’d found my calling. But a career doesn’t last forever. It wasn’t until I was planning my retirement that becoming a writer moved out of the back of my mind to the front.
At my retirement party, people asked what I was going to do in retirement. I was afraid to tell them I wanted to write books, but that strange woman’s message kept echoing through my mind. I wasn’t sure I had the courage to step outside my comfort zone, but I closed my eyes and took the leap. I announced I was going to write books which elicited polite smiles and wishes of good luck with that. I enrolled at the West Texas Writers Academy as the first step, and the rest is history. I’m about to self-publish my tenth book.
I hope whoever sent that message through that young woman is pleased with what I’ve done with my life. If there are any other messages, I hope they come in a less eerie way.