“A writer will be interested in what we don’t understand rather than what we do.” —Flannery O’ Connor
Your oldest son asks what you and his dad are whispering about before dinner. Facing a cutting board strewn with tomato juice, you startle as if you’ve been caught passing notes in class. He cocks his head, waiting.
“Dad and I were discussing gun violence… again” would be the honest answer. You glance at your husband. “Don’t worry about it, honey,” is what you say instead, picking up the knife and slicing more tomatoes. Which is ironic, considering the fact that you are indeed worrying — about school shootings, political violence, the genocide in Gaza, wars abroad and division in your country.
Your son doesn’t like your answer, but he’s already moved on, curious about what you’re cooking for dinner. Tacos, you answer. It’s taco Tuesday, after all, and the absurdity of making pico de gallo while grappling with death makes your stomach churn.
At church, your pastors preach that God is good and people are sinful, and while you agree, you also wonder about this message’s effect on the human psyche week after week. And what of the barrage of bad news we receive, almost daily, on our screens? How does that affect one’s heart?
At the start of the creation story, God makes humans in God’s own image and calls them very good. Sinfulness writes headlines, but what about our innate capacity for goodness?
You think of the way your youngest wraps his arms around your back and hugs you hard like he’ll never let go. You think of your oldest, and the stories he tells you before he drifts off to sleep at night, how he loves to have you listen. Yes, your kids fight and whine — all kids do — but oh, what a marvel they are, what a gift of creation.
The next day, when your beautiful children are at school, you sit at a library desk and press your pen to the page. You wonder, why bother writing at all when there’s so much brokenness around us? What good will my words do, anyhow? Why write?
You look up, eyes settling on elegant shelves brimming with books. When you were young, you reveled in storytime with your parents. After you could read on your own, you carried books with you the way you used to carry around your favorite flower blanket. Since childhood, stories have been your compass, a means to navigate a confusing world. You write because you first read.
As a freelance writer, you create work no one wants to pay for, but everyone needs. Articles, essays and devotions guide our thinking. Poems, prayers and stories comfort us at weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations. Writing often garners measly (if any) wages and is already being replaced by AI. You write because the need to express is human, and our stories are marked by emotions, memories and hard-earned insights no computer can ever comprehend. Human storytellers have had a place in society for eons and they will continue to be vital. Life begets art; art begets life. You claim the title storyteller.
You write because once, an author wrote something that touched the deepest part of you, and you finally felt known and less messy and truly worthy and you want to try and do the same thing for someone else. You fold your memories and reflections with care and fashion them into an origami crane. You place the crane into a reader’s hands and say, “Here. I made this for you, I hope it makes you feel less alone. I hope it makes you feel something.”
You write because holding a pen in your hand is akin to stepping on an express train. It’s as if God handed you a ticket and murmured, Enjoy the ride. You write because the journey beckons.
You write because filling a blank page with ideas empties you like nothing else can. Writing is hard work for a busy mind like yours. You aren’t the kind of writer who can produce graceful material upon first draft. If anything, your drafts are a lot like your garden — in need of weeding, watering and time in the sun. In other words: wild.
Maybe revision is part of the appeal? You spent many years as an editor, clearing space for others’ stories to ripen. After tending wild words, you feel wrought out, clear, purposeful, powerful.
True, you might toil for hours unseen on one paragraph that will be read by two people and cause seven to unfollow you. Nevertheless, you nurture stories for the few who pause to appreciate their beauty — and will then be moved to grow and bloom themselves.
And it’s this beauty that guides you today, as you sort through memories from recent days, searching for evidence of God’s grace among us.
You write to reach for goodness.
How else would you remember a cool breeze rippling through your sweater on a September morning, your first sighting of crimson leaves, foreshadowing the approaching autumn? How else would you remember tossing the football with your eight-year-old son, both of you barefoot in the yard, amber light filtering through the trees, and the glowy feeling inside when he asked you to play with him? (You feel lucky he still asks.) Who else will account for your preschooler’s make believe, and the cookies and fruit he served you in the play kitchen? You write because you love your family, and you love God’s world and this act of documenting what you love is a prayer of thanksgiving.
You write because you can’t imagine not writing. Your hand gets itchy if you aren’t able to write for too many days. Because there is a story waiting to be written that only you can tell. Because readers are waiting to be known by your words. Because you were created to create. Because, in spite of everything, you believe in humans’ capacity for goodness. Everyone is starving for kindness and you will do your small part to serve up hope.
Jack, Adam and I have been watching a group of goslings that live near our apartment. At the start of June, the goslings’ fuzzy yellow feathers began turning light gray. Whenever we’d pass them on the dog walk, their mama would stare menacingly at us, and if anyone got too close, she’d hiss.
“Why is she hissing, Mom?” eight-year-old Jack asked.
“Well, the mother wants to make sure her babies are safe,” I said, giving her a knowing nod. “She’s warning us not to mess around with her goslings… or else.”
“Or else what?” he pressed.
“Or else mother goose will fight us,” I chuckled, guiding us forward. We had an afternoon snack and an hour of screentime to look forward to, maybe a trip to the pool afterwards. Now mother goose was in protector mode, but I wondered if she ever felt exhausted by a barrage of snack requests, or even perplexed by how to entertain her brood. And, what did she look like when she was at peace?
Recently, the boys and I were walking our dog and we encountered the goslings again. I think. Honestly, they looked so large, they passed for geese. Closer inspection revealed their shortened tails and beaks, but, my, my, they’d changed. Astonishingly, their mother seemed nonplussed by their growth and our presence.
So it is with my boys, who, in the course of six weeks, have grown longer limbs and extra bumps and bruises and daily look as if they’re about to take flight. Unlike mother goose, I have zero chill about this reality and luckily, several summers before they leave home. Like our gosling friends, we’ve fallen into a summer rhythm with increased independence. Here are ten things that are helping us survive these long, hot weeks of change and growth.
Baseball: This was Jack’s second year of youth baseball, and while it wasn’t my favorite due to a cool, wet spring, I still enjoyed watching him play. Jack’s catching and throwing improved a lot this past season, and three-year-old Adam even made a buddy on the sidelines. Interestingly, my favorite part of this season hasn’t been the formal games at all, it’s been practicing with Jack and our family. We’ll either meet at a park I love or play ball in the yard at my folks’ house, where my sons’ grandparents, uncle and cousins can join in. Some of our sweetest moments happened with a wiffle ball and plastic bat, racing barefoot around imaginary bases.
My parents: Since school let out, we’ve been traveling to and from Chicago’s western suburbs in search of a new home. As anyone who’s searching for a house knows, the market is moving quickly and if a house comes up that you like, you need to see it ASAP. Bringing kids to showings is… not ideal. Thankfully, my folks have stepped in to watch Jack and Adam while my husband and I visit homes. They are saints for being ready to host the boys, including special treats and trips to the comic store for baseball cards, and I’ve loved seeing their relationships deepen. Grandparents to the rescue!
Summer skincare: As an aging millennial on the cusp of 40, daily facial sunscreen is a must: I use this SPF 50 tinted one on average days and this glowy version when I’m feeling fancy. I’m all about protecting my sons’ fair skin as well. When I’m out in the sun with the boys, we slather on this Unseen Sunscreen dupe I found at Trader Joe’s in June (sadly, this product is no longer available) or waterproof sunscreen from Target.
Simple breakfast: With warmer weather here, I’ve set aside my usual scrambled eggs for breakfast in favor of cool, creamy yogurt. I recently discovered Ratio yogurt, which is low in sugar, high in protein and my new go-to quick breakfast, paired with homemade peanut butter energy balls or fruit. My favorite flavor is vanilla. The boys enjoy Chobani flips (their favorites include mint chip, key lime pie and cookie dough). We’ve also been stocking up on juicy watermelon, which they both eat nonstop.
Library pick up: Lately, we’ve been on the run so often that we aren’t able to spend time lingering at the library. Enter: library hold pick up. Instead of browsing the shelves, I’ll sit with the boys and ask them what they’d like to read, then request those books using my library app. A few days later, I’ll receive a notification email to visit the library. We’ll breeze inside to drop off old books and collect our holds, then go on our way. This is my new favorite thing and it’s helping my boys conquer their respective literary canons (for Jack, the Captain Underpants series and Adam, the Berenstain Bears). As for me, I’m enjoying plenty of poetry and working my way through the School for Good and Evil (YA fantasy) series.
My writing group: I adore the women in my writing group. This year, we leveled up and now have an official Voxer thread in addition to our Slack group and text thread. We swap recipes, drop book recs, celebrate life wins, discuss how we are occupying our kids, ask “Is it just me or… ?” and, oh yes, we also chat about writing. They’ve been my summer lifeline as we all navigate the delight and challenges of parenting in the summer.
Quiet time with screens: Yes, we use screens — with boundaries — as a tool to entertain our children. With a three-year-old who’s fighting his midday nap and a precocious eight-year-old, I need relief. This summer it’s available thanks to Let’s go Pikachu on Switch for Jack and Paw Patrol DVDs for Adam. My rule for the summer is no screens in the morning, so my kids usually spend an hour in their respective universes after lunch or before dinner, giving me an hour to catch up on chores, meal prep or my reading.
Playdates: Without the regular rhythm of school pickup and drop off plus apartment living, my kiddos and I are missing interactions with our pals. They’re with me nearly all day every day, which is wonderful, but we need variety! Consequently, I’ve been intentional about setting playdates with children and moms we love. We’ll meet at the pool, a park or in someone’s home and let our kids run and play together. These connections are like a deep exhale for everyone.
My summer uniform: I’ve been living in these chino shorts (in army green and pink), paired with a cute tank top. To rest my hair from heat styling, I’ve been wearing it wet with a claw clip. These sandals (in almond) have been my go-to shoes for summer for three years running. They can be dressed up or down, and they’re incredibly comfy. As for my boys, they’re choosing comfy athletic shorts and shirts, paired with blue slide sandals.
Flexibility: At the end of every Orange Theory class, the head coach at my studio says stretching is the “secret sauce” to longevity. What works for the body can also work for the mind. Perhaps the biggest thing that has helped me this summer has been a flexible mindset. I’ve never been great at adjusting plans but since summer started, I’ve had to shift gears to address family obligations, child injuries (everyone is okay, but we did have one urgent care visit) and house hunting. Letting go of plans and expectations is a good exercise in humility for someone like me. Maybe by the end of the summer, I’ll be more chill? Maybe. (Hey coach, I’m certainly stretching!) Anyway, I do not pretend to know what’s in store for our little flock amid life’s many uncertainties, but one day soon, I hope we’ll stretch our wings and soar home.
Her 38th year is not one she’d ever ask to repeat. “Trying” is how her husband described it in her birthday card. Other adjectives she’d add are “traumatic” and “revelatory.” She has no shining accomplishments to toast. There were more endings than beginnings. More questions than answers. At one point, she disliked herself so much she couldn’t bear to look in the mirror.
Healing took time and courage. She left communities she loved because belonging to them was causing her harm. For a season, she set down her pen and silenced herself. She had hard conversations and made school lunches and folded the laundry and kissed her children and cried in the shower.
Does everyone have these hidden pains they just shoulder quietly? she asked God. Her faith was shaken, but she didn’t stop believing.
Hours of research and reflection helped her see she wasn’t alone. The stories she read — paired with her family’s love — mended what was broken inside. Joy returned. And with it, many wonderful moments; the only possible explanation was grace.
She discovered that some years are gentle and sweet, and other years, everything you think you know burns to ash and you have to fight like hell to rise up after the fire.
After much prayer, she picked up her pen again. She decided she’ll write another book.
At 6:15 a.m. today, her sons tumbled into the master bedroom, searching for her. Her husband rolled back the comforter and the two boys burrowed between them like a pair of puppies. Under the warmth of the comforter, she clung to her children. At least I kept them safe and sound, she resolved. I held them and they held me. That is enough.
I’ve been Ross, digging my cocoa-colored hands into the dirt of a community garden, where “everything makes me mildly or more hungry” pruning poetry from “pear blooms howling forth their pungence,” celebrating Black joy and lamenting Black sorrow.
I’ve been Tara, traumatized by the white survivalists who raised me, singing sweetly in choir, sweating in the junkyard, choked by my brother, fighting to get Educated, mining the context of my life, the lies I was fed, for the truth that defined me — and sets me free.
I’ve been Isra, missing Palestine, abused by the husband I never wanted, raising my four daughters and, “reading [my] books . . . beginning to find a different kind of love.”
I’ve been Paul, diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, clinging to hope, loving my wife, my work as a neurosurgeon and words, always words, I keep writing even in the face of death, marking the moment When Breath Becomes Air.
I’ve been Alice, cradling close the lifelong pain of a childhood accident, startling when my baby daughter saw a “whole world in [my] eye,” which taught me I am “beautiful, whole, and free.”
Each story a ticket to a place where I
l o s e
and
find
myself.
Storytellers and stories referenced in order of appearance: Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Tara Westover’s Educated, Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man, Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air and Alice Walker’s essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is Self.”
I wrote this ekphrastic poem as part of Exhale Creativity‘s Reading Well, Writing Well 2 Workshop.
The vent above the laundry room, located directly beneath my bedroom window, was the best spot in the house for reading. The natural light there could not be beat, plus it offered peak airflow. What I’d do is snuggle my back against the white dresser, position my bottom and feet over the vent slats, then prop across my thighs my latest book — in fourth grade, I was fond of the Little House series — and lose myself in the story.
When the Midwestern wind howled at our walls, I’d tent a fleece blanket over my body like a Snuggie and grasp the magic tome that transported me out of the suburbs and into the frontier with Laura and her pioneer family. We collected sap and made real maple syrup, churned butter, carried out the day’s chores and danced to Pa’s fiddle in their cozy cabin. I was fascinated with Laura’s life: there was always something to do or explore, people used their hands to make everything from meals to calico dresses, and new adventures awaited every season.
I read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s tales in the mid-90s, an era in which I played Oregon Trail on early model Macintoshes and ate McDonald’s Happy Meals regularly. I imagined pioneer times with a great fondness, perhaps because I never felt like I fit in much in my small world. We’d moved to Aurora, IL, from Clarksville, TN, when I was in second grade. By the time I arrived on the scene, it seemed everyone already had a friend group at McCarty Elementary. I’d left mine back in Clarksville.
Books became my closest companions, my security blanket, my transport away from the loneliness that ached inside me. A quick and early reader, I was voracious for stories. I visited The Met for the first time thanks to From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I solved myriad mysteries alongside the Boxcar Children. I became obsessed with hieroglyphics due to The Egypt Game.
Then I found a girl in the pages of A Wrinkle In Time whose sensitivity and longing to be liked matched mine. The passage “‘Why can’t I hide it, too?’ Meg said. ‘Why do I always have to show everything?’” roused tears of recognition.
There was so much to learn about the world – and myself – and I was discovering I could do it through stories. Each book I finished left me hungry for more.
Woosh. After the vent in my bedroom blasted hot air, my blanket would trap it, toasting my body long after the air shut off. Between the heat, the light and these stories, I wanted to grasp onto the warmth I felt and never let go.
***
My first real job after college was at a large, progressive church on the Gold Coast of Chicago. I’d grown up in a church due to my mother’s work as music director and organist for Immanuel Lutheran; never had I ever imagined working for one. I’d studied English Literature with a minor in New Media Journalism and, as graduation loomed, I dreamed of becoming an editorial assistant at a fancy magazine in New York City. Maybe I’d work at one of my favorites, Self or Glamour. Or I’d become a cub reporter for a local newspaper before moving onto the Chicago Tribune. I’d worked all four years at our college newspaper and interned at a magazine senior year. I thought I had a fleeting chance at making it.
My career aspirations disappointed those who asked, “What are you going to do with an English major? Teach?” No, I had no intention of teaching. I wanted to write.
Instead I found myself situated in the old servants’ quarters of Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, copy editing bulletins. It was 2008, and the economy was in free fall. Unpaid internship opportunities beckoned, but I couldn’t afford to work for free. A chance job opening, passed on by a professor, led me to work here, at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and East Chestnut Street, where privileged shoppers met persons begging for coins, where rich and poor alike found solace from the city’s cacophony in the church’s gothic sanctuary.
I would have missed this opportunity, were it not for Professor Ed Uehling. For the final required class for my major, I’d debated between a popular Children’s Literature course and Uehling’s course on Contemporary Literature. I chose his course, likely because it best suited my schedule. Thanks to him, I fell headfirst in love with the genre.
I feasted on Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Ann Patchett’s The Patron Saint of Liars.I savored Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter. The most delicious book on the syllabus was How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. Each of these authors were still alive and writing to the world in which we lived. The thought exhilarated me.
Even with (or perhaps because of) the pressure of OMG-what-will-I-do-after-graduation building in my head, I dove into alternate realities and faced familiar truths in the pages of those books. I wrote the strongest papers of my college career and developed a good relationship with Uehling. When he suggested I consider the editorial assistant opening at the church, I applied. At that point, I was desperate for paid work.
“She has been too frightened to carry out any strategy, but now a road is opening up before her,” Julia wrote of Yolanda, one of the Garcia sisters. “She clasps her hands on her chest—she can feel her pounding heart—and nods.”
Like Yolanda, I wasn’t quite sure of the path I was taking, I only knew I had to be brave and embrace it.
Several months into the role, I stood in the church narthex, slipping stacks of sermon booklets into the literature racks. Hands full, I resisted the urge to question if I was wasting my time here. After all, everyone had to start somewhere, and why not start with a salaried job with benefits?
The task completed, I turned and took in the expanse of the sanctuary – rows upon rows of empty pews; its vast, vaulted ceiling; panes of jewel-toned light that streaked down from stained glass creating a mosaic on the floor. Come Sunday these pews would be full. I’d witnessed it myself a handful of times. Though I was already intimately familiar with the church’s inner workings, it never quite felt like home. Especially on a Sunday morning.
Sitting through an unfamiliar liturgy, I longed for the Lutheran hymns and prayers of my childhood. But I hadn’t yet found a congregation of my own.
Each week, as I reviewed Fourth’s “News and notes bulletin” for typos, every book club or Bible study posting spurred unexpected pangs of jealousy. Young and new to Chicago, I realized something: I wanted what these people had – community.
***
A couple years later I was at my desk in the church reading during my lunch break when I happened across an essay called “What To Know When You’re 25.” It left me breathless.
I was 24 at the time, and work at the church had grown stale. I couldn’t figure out how to move forward so I just stayed there. Even though all our friends were getting married, my college sweetheart hadn’t yet popped the question, and I didn’t dare push him. Furthermore, we still hadn’t found a church for ourselves in Chicago.
I was drifting.
How had the writer of this essay stepped inside my consciousness and rendered it in words for all to see? I couldn’t fathom it.
I printed her advice in my planner: “Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming.”
That writer’s name was Shauna Niequist, and the essay was from her book, Bittersweet. I later purchased a copy and practically inhaled its contents. Afterwards, I knew I wanted to write like her someday. More than that, I wanted to live her stories — rich stories of marriage, motherhood, close friendships and deep faith.
I was hungry for those stories. Now I needed to seize them for myself.
***
It’s 7:30 p.m. and my husband is putting our preschooler to bed upstairs. In our basement I’ve set up my laptop on a box and I’m facing a Zoom grid of nine other women. We raise our glasses — some filled with wine, others tea and one whisky — to the screen and virtually toast our friend Ashley for her recent birthday. Due to COVID-19, we’re meeting remotely.
Ashley thanks us, then remarks that it’s been nearly 10 years since we started this book club. Shortly after I read Shauna’s essay, Ashley joined the staff of Fourth Presbyterian Church. We became fast friends, bonding over books and faith and staff happy hours.
On one of our lunchtime walks around the track near Northwestern’s downtown campus, I told Ashley how much I admired Shauna’s cooking club that she writes about in Bittersweet. I always wanted to have my own small group like that, I said, but my group would meet to talk about books. Ashley agreed that it sounded lovely.
As we turned back to the church offices, I grew bold. “Well, why don’t we start one?”
Ashley turned to me and gushed, “I love that idea!”
We decided she’d host, and we’d invite some coworkers and friends from college. Our first book would be Unbroken, a fascinating true story of a man’s resilience captured by Lauren Hillenbrand. It was Ashley’s favorite.
That first meeting was a great success, and thus, we kept our club going. Over the years, we read contemporary fiction and nonfiction, occasionally dipping into the classics or poetry. We most often read books by women — Ann Patchett, Sue Monk Kidd and Elizabeth Gilbert were favorites. The year I got married, Ashley and some of the book club girls attended my wedding. The year I started working at my dream job as an associate editor for a magazine, we read Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist. On a cool spring night that sparkled with the joy of another dream realized,I hosted a foodie book club on Shauna’s Bread and Wine, complete with her mom’s blueberry crisp.
As some book club members inevitably moved away from the big city, we stayed in touch and kept recruiting new members. We’d celebrated engagements, weddings, promotions and new babies. We’d watched books we loved turned into movies and attended readings of favorite authors. My participation waxed and waned, especially the year I became a mother. Yet page after page, books brought us together. We created a beautiful story with each other in nearly 10 years.
Realizing I’ve been daydreaming, I redirect my attention to the computer screen. Tonight we’re discussing A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum, and one of our friends says she’s worried it promotes negative cultural stereotypes.
I disagree. This book covers domestic abuse and misogyny, I say, but it’s also about the unique strength of women. Though its heroine is isolated in her struggles, in the end, she derives courage to act from reading and from motherhood. The mothers in the group nod their heads in recognition.
Conversation shifts to the next topic, and I think of a line of Etaf’s that drove straight through my heart: “It’s the loneliest people who love books the most.”
I watch the smiling faces of each of my friends, some of whom moved years ago and are now tuning in for this special remote gathering, and offer a silent prayer of gratitude. Etaf’s words about loneliness may be true, but when bibliophiles come together, magic happens. In this time of COVID-19, while we cannot meet in person, when I long for nothing more than human connection, this feels especially significant.
“Reading her books, she was beginning to find a different kind of love,” Etaf later writes. “A love that came from inside her, one she felt when she was all alone, reading by the window. And through this love, she was beginning to believe, for the first time in her life, that maybe she was worthy after all.”
I smile and soak up the moment’s warmth, thankful for the young girl who loved books and the young woman who decided it was time to push her narrative forward. For the friends — in books and real life — who helped me see I am worthy.
Erin Strybis 