A beginning doesn’t stand alone.
It is connected to something that has ended, just like our first breath in life is linked to our last through the air we breathe.
Some endings bring an immense sense of relief. Others, break our hearts. Regardless of what category they fall into, in between endings and beginnings is a space where the previously unimagined emerges out of the mist. If only we have the courage to see what lies in that place of surreal emptiness.
What, I hear you ask, rather loudly, does this random philosophy have to do with a blog with the most auspicious name of “An Author on L Plates with a Senior’s Card”?
I’ve been drawn to the world of books ever since I could read: and for as long as I can remember, I’ve created stories in my head. But it never occurred to me to write them on paper. I was educated in the system that taught imagination was daydreaming, and very, very naughty.
A story came to me in my late fifties that would simply not go away. I did my utmost to ignore it, constructed every barrier. Eventually, I surrendered, and followed my tale.
When I turned sixty, I was hundred percent on board, plotting and planning, learning and writing. For the first time in my life, I had time to follow my passion, my dreams. However, fate took a turn down a dark alley. My husband, my soul mate of forty-two years, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Fifteen months later, he passed away. Just as a global pandemic shut the world down, enclosing me in my lockdown world of one. Borders, once an arbitrary line in the landscape, entrapped me, separating me from my entire family. To say the least, my grip on sanity was severely tested.
In this time of intense grief and deep-soul aloneness, where I was free-floating dissociated from all that was once my world, I picked up my tale again. For quite a while, it was the only activity where I could forget my sorrow and find an inkling of joy.
For three years I have kept writing and learning; and re-writing and re-writing and re-writing – which is the secret task of writers that generally remains hidden from readers.
At first, I called myself a “writer”. Then I became brave enough to call myself an “author” – obviously after first checking the meaning of the word. I was indeed a writer of a literary work such as a book; I was creating something. (Phew, no dictionary mentioned the word “published”).
Walk beside me on this path, to laugh or cry or stamp your foot in frustration, as I endeavour to complete “The World Between Dreams”.
Make space to follow your heart, at least once in this life. For, at the end when the time comes for your heart to asks questions, how will you respond?
