Carlson
One of the joys of my retirement has been the chance to join two writing groups. There is a wide variety of members in these groups. There are poets, writers of fiction, writers of memoirs, published writers, writers not interested in publishing and new writers.
What all members have in common is a love of writing — to be more specific, we love the surprises that often happen when we write.
Both writing groups that I am part of emphasize encouraging one another. No one offers harsh criticism, not because we have a rule against it, but because we know that kind of feedback rarely helps. Suggestions to improve the writings are encouraged, but always done with respect.
The pleasures that come in these writing groups are as varied as are the writers. When I listen to a fiction writer or poet, I often think, “Wow, what an imagination.” When a writer shares a portion of a memoir, I feel invited into a family’s history. I experience the shock of an unexpected tragedy or marvel at a coincidence that so changes a family’s future that it seems predetermined. Some of the true stories that I’ve listened to in writing groups would be dismissed as too far-fetched by writers of fiction.
Perhaps the most pleasurable aspect of writing groups is listening to writers read their own work aloud. That’s when an inflection or emphasis communicates something beyond the words. Sometimes, I’ll hear a change in the writer’s tone of voice and think, “That sentence, that insight, that realization didn’t come easily. That memory or feeling really cost the writer something.”
Here is something that might be surprising: Many cities and towns have writing groups, and a person doesn’t have to be a proficient writer to join. One member took over six months before she shared a piece of her family’s history that she’s writing for her grandchildren. She was the only person surprised that her writing was compelling and beautifully expressed.
I’ve mentioned before in this column that I believe that every person is a caretaker of stories, stories that only a few people or maybe only one person carries. That makes me wonder if we would treat one another better if we accepted that the people we meet in our lives carry stories within them, stories that might, if we listened to them, change our lives.
I believe it was T.S. Eliot who wrote that each of us lives our lives as if in a locked cage, even as each of us also holds a key in our hands. The problem is that no matter how hard we try, the key in our hand doesn’t open the cage we’re in. The key in my hand opens the locked cage of another person, and another person holds the key that can unlock the cage that I’m in.
Might it not be a story that another person is carrying that is the key to free us from something that is holding us back?
David Carlson of Franklin is a professor emeritus of philosophy and religion. Send comments to [email protected].
