Plant a tree...watch it grow

Last month at a church rummage sale, I discovered a book by one of my favorite authors.  More than ten years ago, Sue Monk Kidd, who penned The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings, compiled a host of essays she had written for Guideposts magazine since the 1980’s.  Reading Firstlight has lovingly reminded me of Christmases long ago.  My grandmother always gave me a copy of Daily Guideposts from the time I was in eighth grade and I spent the better part of every holiday afternoon holed up in my room, eagerly searching through the book for Sue’s essays.  Each one was captivating because of her incredible attention to detail and open-hearted way of looking at life, from the simplest moments to the most perplexing.  Perhaps what struck me the most was the feeling of as she writes in Firstlight, “a soulful being together between the reader and the author".

Many of the essays I’ve been rereading remind me of some of the ones I have written for Open Road, so I now fully realize it was back then the initial seed of inspiration was planted.  A little more than a decade later, I would begin writing essays of my own.  One turned into a novel which turned into a sequel which turned into eight more books.  And I’m not done writing yet.

In one of my favorite essays, Sue writes about how growth takes time.  A seed must be buried in the darkness of the soil, releasing roots invisible to the eye, but necessary for the sprout to appear above the surface.  Over time the sprout becomes a seedling, and the seedling a sapling, and so on until a strong, healthy tree grows from what was once hidden in the earth.   A caterpillar begins its life cycle as an egg, then a larva, then a pupa where it completely transforms itself into an adult butterfly, never to return to its original state again.  It takes a butterfly only twenty-eight days to go from egg to its magical metamorphosis.  Sadly, it only lives for four to six weeks.  Of course a tree takes much longer to grow to its full height, but its beauty can last much longer than one human lifetime.

A couple of weeks ago, Steve and I were heading up to Posey Lake, Michigan for a much-needed vacation.  While I sat in the car waiting for him to fill the gas tank, I checked my phone for messages.  To my surprise, one of my former first graders sent me a private message on my professional Facebook Page.  Remember the trees you gave us and told us to plant them when we got home? Eric wrote.  Look at her now!

He sent a picture of a gorgeous pine tree that dwarfed a two-story house. 

Oh my gosh! I wrote back.  That’s amazing!  How old is that tree?

I planted it when I was six, he replied.  You gave it to me when I was in first grade, so it’s been going now for twenty-six years.

 I quickly did the math.  How in the world are there kids I taught who are now thirty-two years old? I wondered.  Then I realized that there are kids much older than that…and it made me laugh. 

Steve got back in the car and I showed him the picture.

“Who is that from?” he asked.

“One of my first graders…I gave them saplings on Earth Day the year Eric was in my class.  I think someone from a nursery donated a bunch of them.”  Smiling at the picture, I sighed, “That made my whole day.”

When I asked if I could use his photo in this blog, Eric enthusiastically replied, Sure!  I’ll get a better picture at my mom’s later today.  Can my daughter Mariah be in it?

What a joy a few hours later to see their smiling faces standing at the base of the tree and to read Eric’s profound caption:  I planted the tree with my dad.  I’m really proud of it and talk about it often.  I try not to be boastful about it, but I think that talking about it will hopefully plant a seed in someone to do the same.

Mariah is one blessed young woman to have such an incredible father.  I remember Eric fondly and am not at all surprised to know that he has loved and nurtured that tree for decades, much in the same way I’m sure he has and will love and nurture his daughter.

We can never know how our presence will impact another person.  I’ve not given birth, but I did spend my twenties and early thirties with hundreds of kids who I’m happy to still call my own.  Now every time a man or woman who I had the privilege to teach contacts me, it always lifts my spirits and connects me to the distant past in incredible ways which remind me once again that I didn’t have to have a child of my own to be a mother.  I’ve attended weddings of my former students, spent time with their families at graduation parties, and often run into people who ask, “Are you Miss Ingersoll?”

I laugh and nod.  “Yes.”

“You were my first grade teacher!” they smile broadly.  “You don’t look the same, but I could tell it was you from the sound of your voice.”

Then I laugh some more because that’s often how I recognize them as well…even the men.

They reminisce about stories from our classroom, and each one reminds me that even though teaching was incredibly demanding, it was time well spent…and then some, for many of the lessons I shared with them when they were little are now, decades later, being passed down to their children. What an incredible blessing to know that the seeds which were planted back then have magically metamorphosed into a soulful being together between what was once the teacher and the student, but has now transformed into something even more beautiful, yet indescribable.  

Eric with his daughter, Mariah, 2017

Step by step

As I was changing the calendar from January to February, I thought Where in the world did 2019 go?  If I look back on my journals, it’s been a time filled with unexpected adventures.  Not that that’s any big surprise.  Ever since I left a traditional job in 1999, I’ve been making life up as I go along.  There’s been no template, no rules, no rubric, no role model to follow.  In many ways it’s been completely terrifying, but for the most part, it’s been an incredible ride.  Not that I’m even close to the finish line.  

Still, if I’ve learned anything along the way, it’s that the slower I go, the faster I get there.  Sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it?  Now that I’ve lived several rounds of the same lessons, I figured out that to consciously move step-by-step means I won’t skip one up the spiral staircase of my ever-evolving existence.  

Yesterday I was working out at the gym with a few men who were pumping iron.  As I'm looking forward to hiking season, I’ve been training on the steps, the wooden benches, and the highest incline on the treadmill.  Still, last night I took some ribbing from one of the trainers who jokingly ordered, “Faster, Kate!  Go faster!”

That struck a nerve.  I grew up with a father who constantly told me to work faster.  Just the other day my neighbor was watching me shovel snow and playfully admonished me to move faster.  It seems this entire culture is hell-bent on rushing productivity and I used to be as well.  Now I’m no longer interested in speed.  After years of pushing myself too hard, it’s a joy to let my body lead the way, telling me how far it can go, reminding me when to stop.

“No, thanks,” I told the trainer, shaking my head.  “I’ll lose my balance and fall.  It’s better for me to add weight or use a higher platform.”  Then, just to prove it to him (and myself) I picked up the mid-range bench and steadily climbed up and down, holding eight-pound weights in my hands.  Not an easy feat after a long day.  Even so, I was thankful to be able to do it at some level, for I don’t have a specific workout plan or target goal and I don’t really need one.  

As a writer, nothing in my professional life has ever been predictable, except for the fact that it’s always been inconsistent.  Some days are diamonds.  Some days are stone.  Some years are feast.  Some are famine.  Yet along the way there has always been more than enough work to sustain me.  More than enough time to accomplish the things I want to do.

More than enough freedom to move at my own pace.

It’s been five years since I wrote The Lace Makers and I’m a little anxious about starting a new novel.  I always get like this at the beginning of anything, as staring at a blank screen when I sit down to write can be daunting.   Particularly with The Lace Makers, I agonized about what the characters would sound like, how to fully express the images that floated through my mind.  At first, I thought I knew what I was doing.  For over a year I had researched both the Civil War and the Holocaust.  There were stacks of notes at the ready.  A library of books to reference.  Yet for the first third of the novel, it felt as though I was pushing too hard, rushing the story, trying to meet a self-imposed deadline.  

Then, like always, a miracle happened.

Someone asked me what it’s like to be a writer.  “How do you do it?  I mean, how do you pull ideas out of thin air and put them on paper?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged.  “I just sit down and write whatever comes up in my imagination.”

“Do you know how the book will end?”

“Yes, I always have the last scene in mind,” I told him.  “But I never know how I’m going to get there.”

“Are you going to write tonight?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“What’s coming to mind now?”

Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I saw a clear image floating up to the surface.  “Something about shoes and feet.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “I’m making it up as I go along.”

As I drove home, I thought about one of my favorite movies of all time.  In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones is on a quest to discover the Ark of the Covenant, and not without some incredible plot twists and turns.  In one pivotal scene, he’s about to chase after a truck with no vehicle available.

“How?” asks his friend, Sala.

“I don’t know,” Indy replied dryly.  “I’m making this up as I go.”

When I got home, the flood gates opened and I finished writing the first draft a week later.  What a miracle.

One of my friends recently enrolled in an improv class at our local Repertoire Theater.  “It’s so great!” Shannon gushed.  “I get to let my inner Tigger come out!  It’s just what I need in my high-stress life.”

“I’ll bet you look forward to it all week,” I said.

“Yes!  And the best thing that I’ve learned is that you can’t plan ahead when you’re doing improv,” she grinned.  “It’ll ruin the whole thing if you even try.  The director taught us that the three most important things to remember while doing improvisation with other actors are to love, trust, and play.  We have to love each other so we can be ourselves, trust each other so that no matter what happens, we know we’ll be safe.  And then of course, once those things are in place, the play part just comes easily!”

“Love, trust, and play,” I echoed.  “How simple and yet challenging.”

“It is,” Shannon agreed.  “But oh, how wonderful to practice!  Improv is life!”

Kinda reminds me of another great line Indiana Jones said in The Last Crusade:  “We don’t follow maps to buried treasure and X never, ever marks the spot.”  

I sometimes think it would be grand to follow a list of directions that guaranteed my success as a published writer.  Still, I’m inspirited by an interview with a twelve-year-old Native American boy who is being raised by his grandmother and uncle in a small trailer along with numerous other children.  President of his class, captain of the football team, and an accomplished tribal dancer, Robert Looks Twice wisely knows how to value his own path and not strive to follow an easier route.

When asked if he’s jealous of more affluent kids, he replied, “No, because my uncle told me that there’s gonna be a muddy road and an easy road.  The rich kid takes the easy road and the poor kid takes the muddy, rough road…and they’re building up strength the whole time.”

I’ve waited decades for my heart’s desire, all the while taking a muddy road on the way to the mountain top that finally seems within my reach.   There’s been no map.  No X marking the spot.  No indication of how much longer I’ll have to climb.  But none of that matters.  I know who I am.  I know why I’m here.  I know that even when I reach the top, there will always be another mountain to climb.

 Moment by moment, I'll go at my own pace, building up strength, building up my character.  I'll improvise when I need to, take action when I can, and stay on the lookout for buried treasures which are always revealed every step of the way.