Taking copious notes along the way

I was always a hybrid thing.

A writer who taught. A mother who wrote. A teacher who smuggled stories from my own life into my classes and wove teaching through all of my stories. That was never a contradiction. That was just how I was made.

I was also, quietly — almost secretly — writing memoir. For decades. Tucking the pages away into notebooks and desk drawers and the hard drives of several laptop computers.

I wasn’t hiding. Well, maybe I was but not because I was afraid. I was protecting the work but I was also, shielding the quiet life that I loved just the way it was.

Chattering with my children as they burst through the door, dropping their backpacks, demanding treats. I loved packing lunches and sneaking veggies into meatloaf and growing tomatoes and zucchini in the back yard. Loved hanging with other parents in the school parking lot. Loved packing my kids in the car and driving across the glittering Hudson River. Day trips to the ski slopes just north of our home. Leaving treats for fairies at the roots of trees. Talking to deer and bunnies. Tending sick kids. Helping my husband grow his home architecture practice. Family trips: Martha’s Vineyard, Montauk, Sag Harbor. I loved every second of it.

And I knew, somehow, that publishing the work could intrude on that. It’s not that I was private. Well, I was — a little. But I really didn’t want things to change.

And then, of course, they did. As my kids entered high school, I was watching my parents slide. They were more frail. Less able to fend for themselves. They needed aides and then, more than part time aides — and a busy daughter could provide. I did what I could. Helped Dad move to a nursing home. Helped Mom pack the house and get through a yard sale and move to a smaller place, an apartment that was closer to me but farther from the life she’d built.

By then, I’d gone back to work. I was working full time. I’d landed a magazine job - and I loved it. But the hours were long and the deadline was weekly and I was carrying a lot.

I started waking up earlier - just to capture a few hours of quiet with a notebook, a cup of tea and nowhere to be. Morning pages unspooled into scenes. I was writing notes to myself, notes to the person I imagined would have time to read them.

Maybe I was waiting until my children were grown and my parents were gone. Maybe I wasn’t waiting so much as living, taking copious notes along the way.

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Then, last month, at the end of May, something cracked open. Not something new. Something that was always there, finally stepping into the space that had been made for it.

The notebooks were ready to become books.

I loved that life. After the kids were grown and my parents were gone, I had to learn to love this one too. And I did. And I do. I love working on these stories. I love sharing them with you. It’s become the highlight of each day to read your emails and comments. I anticipate them now as I wake up each morning.

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So, this note is to announce the shift that’s already in motion.

A shift that’s been moving for some time. The shift from mostly a teacher of spiritual things to mostly an author with spiritual themes. The books are pouring from me now. Out of the notebooks onto the screen. If you’ve been reading along, you’ve been watching it happen.

I’m collecting them in two places.

The scenes and stories are here. All the books, on a site dedicated to capturing them as they spill from the notebooks.

The teachings are here, at SOSI: The School of Sacred (Words and) Images

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I hope you’ll find things to love here. I have certainly loved making them for you.

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Here they come — the memoirs, the teaching books, the school, the wild lyric work. All of it, emerging. Here I am, releasing them. There you are, witnessing that.

It’s not too late. It’s all right on time. It could not have been any other way. How do I know? This is how it is.

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Oh, one more thing. I’ve updated my website. Take a look. Tell me what you think, what you feel. Tell me all about you!

I am so eager to hear from you as we continue our walk together through this miraculous world.

xxoo
Amy