September 25, 2021
“Well, good weather, bad weather, t’aint very choice, but I always manage to find something to say.” (Ma Gibbs in Our Town. Thornton Wilder
Way back when I was teaching at Duke, I had a string of major surgeries twice in one year, each requiring six weeks at home. I was neurotically terrified that God had given me that time to work on something but I had no idea what it was. Further, I would be punished severely if I wasted that time. So I wrote two books: “Women in the Middle,” and “Caring for Oneself When Caring for Others.” I developed a rhythm for my writing. I generated a list of ideas to develop. Each night I would pick one to think about before the next morning. In the morning, I would walk 1 mile to the nearest McDonald’s. I would find a corner table and start with a cup of coffee. I knew that my handwriting would take two pages to finish a chapter. At noon I would get a single hamburger, finish the chapter, enjoy people-watching and kibitzing, and at 5 o’clock I would begin the walk home. Occasionally I had to hitchhike the last few blocks. When I got home, I would type up what I had written, put it aside to send to my editor, and begin the process again the next day.
All kinds of good things came out of that year. Toward the end, a friend who brought me communion every Sunday afternoon told me that my notion of God those months was hogwash, and she hoped that I might spend the remaining weeks resting and getting better. So I did. And the books sold well.
Dealing with “stuck” in my life was a lot harder and more frightening. I can’t remember when I first realized that the convent provided me with the safety and security that had been missing in my bohemian family. But after 11 years, I began to trust a friend more than I trusted my superiors, and when together we suggested an idea to bring our order in line with Vatican II, the two of us were “out on our ear” in five minutes. It was 1969, and there were several hundred thousand kindred spirits who left and continued working in the same ministries as we had before. My friend and I lived in common but worked for different churches and nonprofits. Eventually, we were both “stuck.” I didn’t know anything about my anger, and she was very good at passive aggressiveness. I blinked first. As frightened as I was, I knew that something had to change, so I moved across country with little but my car and our dog, to begin all over again.
That was 41 years ago, and I was once again beginning over. Nevertheless, I found friends who affirmed my own strength and creativity, as well as a ministry that required me to discover and live into my own history, feelings, needs, and operative theology in order to serve and teach others. I had wonderful therapists who took my side against the ghosts in my closet and showed me how to defend myself, to claim what I deserved, to enjoy my accomplishments.
Now as I look back on this history with a sense of quiet satisfaction, I can affirm my willingness to take risks, to engage my discomfort and lack of clarity rather than to allow it to disable me. I wonder if tearing up a page of hard written but lackluster prose on one hand, and leaving a place of security and boredom on the other are similar, separated only by order of magnitude. My heart knows the dead ends when my writing doesn’t feel authentic or sound like me, in the same way (in retrospect) that I felt I had lost my way all those years ago.