Trusting in the Circle of Love

It’s been a year since the debut of Along the Writer’s Way. As I look back, I am struck by the words, yours and mine. I so appreciate the ‘likes’ of my fellow bloggers, your thoughtful comments and the guest blog posts that have made Along the Writer’s Way personal and special.

I wrote my first blog post in August 2009 on my website Women’s Writing Circle. Over 400 blog posts later, posts that ranged from finding a creative vision to honoring our voice in a circle of women writers, Google took down my site. The reasons remain unclear. I decided this time last year to start a new website, powered by WordPress, which is Along the Writer’s Way. So here we are.

That first post I wrote almost twelve years ago was dedicated to “my sisters in the writing circle”. As I wrote then, “women have to draw on their own reserves of creativity, capability and fortitude to make a meaningful life, sometimes against all odds. Women want to document their journey, express their creativity, join with other women in sharing the pain, the frustration and the wonder of being women. I know. I am one of them.”

I also wrote my belief that women confront the lonely life more often than men. This has, unfortunately, been intensified by Covid, evidenced by the many books and articles written about “an epidemic of loneliness.” Writing retreats and workshops, those special places and events where women listened to each other, shared their work and blossomed in a garden of wisdom have yet to revive. I wonder … will they ever? Will life ever be the same again after Covid?

Some things are unknowable.

My happiness is a sense of purpose, of feeling creative and good about my work because work is all we really have. People come and go, marriages end, restaurants close, retail stores will never reopen.

Work never lets you down.

I find myself cocooning, pondering what comes next. I still long for new experiences and adventures … I am still “thirsty”. Despite the realities of age, a pandemic and a difficult world, I still believe in new beginnings.

Another year—another year older. Where will it lead? I am trusting in myself and you, my sisters in the writing circle, to write the next chapter here “along the writer’s way.” Will we again dip a toe into community gatherings, feel comfortable meeting in groups, large and small? After almost a two-year hiatus from running my writing group, Women’s Writing Circle started up again in September 2021. Due to the emergence of a new strain of Covid, we went back on hiatus. That setback felt cruel. Yet somewhere between hope and despair, we are restarting read around again in person in our room at Chester Springs Library on March 12. I know you are reading this, hoping you will again meet in your group, attend events and experience the joy of community.

Yesterday in church, I received a Valentine from the young people who handed each of us a heart. Inside my heart was this: Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ~ Ephesians 4:2. I can’t think of better words to live by, can you?