What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

This has been the first real week of spring here in southern Saskatchewan and it’s been a joy to be outside. The sidewalks on our street have been filled with kids on scooters from morning to evening. I watched flocks of geese flying overhead, returning from their southern winter destination. I watched a squirrel run across the road in front of our house, listened to unfamiliar birdsong from an avian friend on the back fence, donned Capri pants, sat on the deck, helped Gerry toss snow from the biggest piles in the yard to sunny spots to expedite melting (our yard is 99.9% free of snow now!), scooped endless poop in the backyard (I just don’t understand the reasoning behind leaving it there through the winter to turn into a soupy, smelly mess in the spring).

In short—it’s been glorious.

I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking. For months, I’ve been trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up or, said differently, what kind of writer I want to be in this season. I’m 64-years-old and running out of time. I need to figure this out. All this ruminating has meant exploring different genres, following new writers, digging deeper into writing organizations I’m a member of, updating my website/blog (causing it to be down most of yesterday—oops), feeling “less than”, and mostly doing all manner of things except writing.

Counterintuitive, in a sense, but that’s the writing life.

I remind myself of things I learned about myself and writing when I wrote The Presence of Absence. In a nutshell, a call to use  the measure of ability I have been given with the written word to find fresh ways of writing timeless truth for the benefit of others and to honour my Creator. Simple, right? Not so much.

I have no university degree. I have no desire to speak at conferences or workshops. I’m just a wife, mom, and grandma who needs to write. For now, my better work is crafting a new life here in Moose Jaw with Gerry, caring for our granddaughter—and writing. Maybe in this season it’s just blog posts, or maybe I get intentional about branching out. As usual, I keep coming up with more answers than questions.

I keep plodding along, tapping out words, thinking deep thoughts, setting intentions where appropriate, and trusting it’s enough in this season. Life can seem so complicated sometimes. It isn’t, really, but it often seems so.