The Beauty of Writing: From Chaos to Calm

There are times when it feels like nothing will ever shift, and then, in a heartbeat, everything changes. At daybreak, the sound of birds announcing a new day woke me as pale, washed sunlight slipped quietly through the bedroom curtains.

Today, I am inspired to write. Immersed in The Ninth Hour, a novel by Alice McDermott, I reflect on turbulence and grace, on how, even in a world filled with ugliness, beauty persists, and on how God appears to us in mysterious ways, as the author so beautifully captures. This book has stimulated my writing, as the words of other writers so often do. Their stories become a compass, guiding us toward our own. Literature and the patterns of daily life, from the morning yoga class to walking the dog and taking in fresh air, invite us to stop and think. One word, one line at a time, sifting through the madness and the beauty. One day at a time. From chaos to calm.

This week, I learned our Women’s Writing Circle has been invited to give a presentation on Moments of Love at a retirement community in our area. Together, our authors will design a program with readings, and our audience will share their feedback and stories.

Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I am blessed with two amazing sons who support me on this journey of aging and living alone and bringing joy to my life. And I remember my mother, her slim arms adorned with silver bracelets. I remember that she made my lunch every day before school. I see her stepping off the Amtrak train from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, to visit me in college, a first for her, an adventurous trip alone without my father, her husband.

On Cinco de Mayo, friends arrived with paper sombreros, guacamole dips, and homemade desserts. Together, we celebrated my yellow Labrador Lily’s 13th birthday. My son, Daniel, gave Lily a brightly stuffed turquoise octopus, which she threw into the air with delight before settling down on the carpet, holding it between her paws. My son, Alex, arrived the next day with recollections we shared of the first time he held her as a puppy, after the three of us picked her up from a farm about twenty miles up the road, where the landscape still stretches to the horizon.

Writing is often about the highs and lows, the bleak and the not-so-bleak. Together, those mosaics form the basis for a novel, a character’s life, or our memoir. We become attuned to staying in the moment, observing all that is around us, and taking it one day at a time. As motivation strikes, like now, we sit down and write as a new day beckons with hope and possibility.