Thank you all for the great comments and thoughts on doing what needs to be done. Here is one of my favorite poems of all time by Marge Piercy, entitled "To Be of Use." It sums up what I feel about work and accomplishment pretty darn well.
The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who stand in the line and haul in their places, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.
I really didn't write this blog with the desire for admiration. Writing a book is like any job, though inspiration is lovely. But it's a sit down and do it thing, and then do it over and again and again. But that could be said for so many things.
I suppose what I truly admire is anything done well. From a muffin to a world peace treaty. And coffee--a moderate amount--helps with many activities.
I do think that there are those amazing, special few who can just devcide to write a book. But the rest of us have to rpactice and work, and then practice some more. I would hate to go to a doctor who had just decided to "be" a doctor. Or even a hair stylist! Or a dry cleaner. Everything is the same--and everything needs to be learned, mostly!
I've had my coffee so I can write back to you. Gigi, I do think you are right. There are about five geniuses walking the planet who don't have to struggle, and maybe five more who wrote the right book at the right time. Most of the rest of us have to struggle a bit!
But the struggle is often the journey itself, and I really have learned a lot while on it.
Hi, Kelli Jo--I think hat if we think we know anything, we are sunk! One of the statements my students love to hear me say more than anything is "I don't know." They are always surprised that I--the adult and the supposedperson in charge--admits to being ignorant. I practice saying it. J
I think you are both right--se just keep learning, thank goodness. Or, at least, we need to remember to be open to learning. When you close off to growth and learning and changing, well, that's the danger area!
Kellie Jo--I guess omeone does have to tell the stories at the end of the line--but in a way that doesn't try to own them, as I suppose I was trying to take on my friend's. I was writing it for my satisfaction and not to save the story for her. That, I think, was what my teacher was trying to tell me.
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