The Writing Life Too

The sky has lots of blue showing at the moment, but yesterday at this time it was raining, make that, thundering buckets from the sky, then breaking into mist with a few brief glimpses of washed-out blue. I was out of town for a few days and am surprised at how far behind I am in things, including the sky.

I was teaching up in Snohomish County, Washington which seems populated by a lot of engineers and people who work at Boeing or Microsoft. The town I was in lies north of Seattle, east of the glorious Puget Sound, dotted with forests and suburbs, and abuts the northern Cascades. Rolling foothills and mountains in the distance, hillsides dusted with copper and gold and russet. Named after the Snohomish tribe, it seems to be a fast-growing place where towns stretch into the countryside, eating up the farmland.

I haven’t traveled much in the past year since I’ve been recovering from a car accident, so it was delicious to meet new people, and to be on a train again. I was working on a manuscript as I traveled along, the weaving car and countryside rolling past were dreamlike and cozy. I also ending up chatting with passengers and met an older woman, Sally.

Sally is newly widowed after 53 years of marriage and it was the first time she’d traveled alone. She was nervous, so we hung out for part of the trip, chatting about our lives, and I made sure she landed in the correct seat and stowed her suitcase when we left Seattle. And she was so grateful she was weeping. She was shaking with nerves as we headed down the tracks, teeming with travelers and bustle. I soothed her to like I do six-year old Paige when she’s scared of what’s coming next. It seemed like such a small thing to help her, and I cannot get her out of my mind.

I often joke that train travel is romantic, with the far-off-and lonely-sounding whistle and the sense that an adventure or encounter lies around the next bend. It feels like Cary Grant or an exciting stranger can end up sitting next to you. When I left Portland a group of travelers were dressed in Victorian travel garb and they looked so appropriate in their sumptuous coats and feathered hats that I longed for a costume of my own. So it wasn’t Cary this time, but a frightened woman with a big heart trying to find her way and courage in a new landscape.

But enough about the trip—I want to tell you about this amazing essay by Andrew Chee about learning from Annie Dillard. And I just have to mention that it warms my heart that another writing teacher cringes at the word soul.
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/ps/personal_essays/annie_dillard_and_the_writing_life.php