A wind-driven lesson

How the destruction of thirty years of compulsive writing changed my life.

I'm 84 years old, and when I found writing, or should I say writing found me, I carried a notebook constantly. Things would pop into my head, and I would write them down as quickly as possible, open to a fresh page, and wait for more of my life to drip out onto paper, any paper. I filled a huge filing cabinet with notebooks, napkins, matchbooks, and scraps of paper covered with words virtually written with my blood as ink.

When a job on the other side of the country presented itself, I loaded the filing cabinet and two suitcases with all my worldly possessions into the back of my inherited 1949 Studebaker R series pickup. I headed out across roads not traveled since 1945, when our family crossed the country at the end of WW2.

A freeway has replaced the two-lane road we took way back then. The road still goes over Elk Mountain in Wyoming. This stretch of interstate is frequently closed because winds often lay 18-wheelers on their sides. The road was not closed when I started over the mountain, but the wind was atrocious. Less than half an hour later, I crept past a yawning chasm, with my heart in my throat. I was committed because there was no sheltered place to stop. The wind made it challenging to stay on the road. Suddenly, a gust so powerful that my truck hopped sideways at least 6 feet and slammed into the guardrail, launching the filing cabinet into the yawning abyss. As I looked out the side window at an explosion of papers when the filing cabinet hit the rocky side. A snowstorm of up to 30-year-old paper whirled in the wind. I could not believe my eyes! I've never felt such a storm of conflicting emotions. Then I began to laugh; all that proof of my craziness will be scattered across hundreds of square miles by tomorrow.

I was free; I didn't have to carry a notebook any longer.

I quit writing for a while, then tried again to communicate with others through my writing.

I don't hurry anymore, I've slowed down. It's so different, I think about what I want to communicate with my writing and who I want to reach. Each piece I write now goes through multiple iterations before I can let it go. Sometimes it's exhausting, but when I feel a piece really communicates what I had clearly in mind, I feel a satisfaction that is hard to describe.

Work in that direction. It is worth it!