September 14, 2009: I think of the song lyrics, "What to leave in, what to leave out . . ." I look back at the first two of those 21 notebooks I wrote over 18 months and I see that it is all relevant -- but can't possibly all be included. I had planned to find the material for about three chapters/essays as my planned work assignment for the week, but instead found about eight or nine -- not all big and great, but important nevertheless.
I keep saying (to the wind, I guess) that I don't want this to be about me -- but I know that I was searching for my own route in life all the while I was making those 500-mile trips to visit my mother in the nursing home. Those monthly trips were as much about my transition as about hers. And so, while dawdling with that thought. . .
I came upon an online reflection by Sue Monk Kidd in which she talks about the transition from writing non-fiction to fiction: " . . . my dream was to write fiction, but I was diverted from that almost before I started." Her firsts two books were narratives of her spiritual experience.
"I think many people need, even require, a narrative version of their life. I seem to be one of them," she writes. Blown away by these unplanned books (but not fighting them), she was somewhat surprised to find herself writing The Secret Life of Bees -- a very successful fiction.
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