I’ve often heard it said that the dying never wish they had spent more time in the office. Instead, they pass from this world expressing their regrets, if they have regrets, over matters closer to home: hours stolen from family and friends, missed opportunities, time and talents wasted.
I don’t work in an office. With the exception of a couple of part-time teaching jobs, I have spent the last thirty-four years self-employed: owner and operator of a bed-and-breakfast, of three separate bookshops, of a mail order book company aimed at homeschoolers, and for the past fifteen years, an independent teacher of home-educated students in the subjects of literature, history, and Latin.
For an even longer period of time—about forty years—I have worked at becoming a writer. Though magazines and newspapers have published over 400 pieces of my work—essays, poems, book reviews, a short story or two, even an article composed long ago on cooking with tofu—and though I have self-published two books that garnered some minor attention, I still regard myself as becoming a writer, meaning I have more to say and want to say it better than in the past.
In all these endeavors, failure was my boon companion. The bed-and-breakfast and the bookshops required efforts far beyond the compensation they provided, and eventually, as dog-owners euphemistically say of their critically-ill pets, I “put them down.” Despite its many rewards, despite the satisfactions won by seeing so many students make a success of themselves, teaching always and automatically involves failure. That seventeen-year-old boy who has taken three years of my seminar and who still doesn’t understand he has to go home and work hard the rest of the week on his assignments—he and others like him are my failures. I remember them more often than they would ever believe, shake my head, and wonder what else I could have done to inspire them.
Of course, failure is intrinsic to writing. Failure goes with the territory. Rare is the writer who stops working on a poem or a story because he considers the piece perfected. No, the real writer stops working on a piece either because he is under a deadline or because he has grown so thoroughly sick of the thing that he declares it finished. We tinker, edit, and fret, until finally we throw up our hands in surrender, hit “post” or “send,” and release our tormented little darling into the cruel world. Oscar Wilde once wrote that he had spent all morning taking a comma out of a poem and all afternoon putting it back in again. That pretty much sums up the writing life.
Now, back to my deathbed: I am afraid I am that oddball who will regret leaving behind unfinished work. To cease breathing without completing an essay or a review would little trouble me, but to cross over the river before finishing a poem or a story would be agonizing—not for readers but for me. Writing and teaching are my vocations, yet I know my students would thrive or fail without me. The words I put on paper, however, can only come from me. No me, no words. To put the matter in the language of my laptop, delete me, and both I and my unwritten words end in the trash.
Do not misunderstand me here. When death comes creeping at the door, as the old blues song puts it, I will regret leaving the beauty of the world and the pleasures of friends and family. Sharing the triumphs and tribulations of those I hold in my heart mean more to me than any writing, yet saying goodbye to them would be easier, I suspect, than leaving a work unfinished. To them, should death give me opportunity, I might bid adieu with affection and joy, and feel the matter closed. To bid farewell to an unfinished book would leave me incomplete.
Which brings me to Lent. Like sleep or love-making, Lent offers a “little death.” After all, Lent begins with a cross of ashes on the forehead and the formula: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.” During this season of penance and renewal some of us give up small pleasures in order to die a little to the world. We meditate on the death of Christ and on the joy of his resurrection. Some of us contemplate as well on our own life and death.
“I am dust and to dust I shall return:” the older I get, the more I feel that pressure of that injunction. To love all that I can love, to work as hard and as well as I can work, to engage as deeply as possible in all daily tasks: these I do in part because of the reality of death and in part to defy death and embrace love. Death is the stick and love the carrot that keeps this mule plugging away, dragging the plow and turning the soil.
So git-up, old mule. You’ve still got a few more fields to go.
For an even longer period of time—about forty years—I have worked at becoming a writer. Though magazines and newspapers have published over 400 pieces of my work—essays, poems, book reviews, a short story or two, even an article composed long ago on cooking with tofu—and though I have self-published two books that garnered some minor attention, I still regard myself as becoming a writer, meaning I have more to say and want to say it better than in the past.
In all these endeavors, failure was my boon companion. The bed-and-breakfast and the bookshops required efforts far beyond the compensation they provided, and eventually, as dog-owners euphemistically say of their critically-ill pets, I “put them down.” Despite its many rewards, despite the satisfactions won by seeing so many students make a success of themselves, teaching always and automatically involves failure. That seventeen-year-old boy who has taken three years of my seminar and who still doesn’t understand he has to go home and work hard the rest of the week on his assignments—he and others like him are my failures. I remember them more often than they would ever believe, shake my head, and wonder what else I could have done to inspire them.
Of course, failure is intrinsic to writing. Failure goes with the territory. Rare is the writer who stops working on a poem or a story because he considers the piece perfected. No, the real writer stops working on a piece either because he is under a deadline or because he has grown so thoroughly sick of the thing that he declares it finished. We tinker, edit, and fret, until finally we throw up our hands in surrender, hit “post” or “send,” and release our tormented little darling into the cruel world. Oscar Wilde once wrote that he had spent all morning taking a comma out of a poem and all afternoon putting it back in again. That pretty much sums up the writing life.
Now, back to my deathbed: I am afraid I am that oddball who will regret leaving behind unfinished work. To cease breathing without completing an essay or a review would little trouble me, but to cross over the river before finishing a poem or a story would be agonizing—not for readers but for me. Writing and teaching are my vocations, yet I know my students would thrive or fail without me. The words I put on paper, however, can only come from me. No me, no words. To put the matter in the language of my laptop, delete me, and both I and my unwritten words end in the trash.
Do not misunderstand me here. When death comes creeping at the door, as the old blues song puts it, I will regret leaving the beauty of the world and the pleasures of friends and family. Sharing the triumphs and tribulations of those I hold in my heart mean more to me than any writing, yet saying goodbye to them would be easier, I suspect, than leaving a work unfinished. To them, should death give me opportunity, I might bid adieu with affection and joy, and feel the matter closed. To bid farewell to an unfinished book would leave me incomplete.
Which brings me to Lent. Like sleep or love-making, Lent offers a “little death.” After all, Lent begins with a cross of ashes on the forehead and the formula: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.” During this season of penance and renewal some of us give up small pleasures in order to die a little to the world. We meditate on the death of Christ and on the joy of his resurrection. Some of us contemplate as well on our own life and death.
“I am dust and to dust I shall return:” the older I get, the more I feel that pressure of that injunction. To love all that I can love, to work as hard and as well as I can work, to engage as deeply as possible in all daily tasks: these I do in part because of the reality of death and in part to defy death and embrace love. Death is the stick and love the carrot that keeps this mule plugging away, dragging the plow and turning the soil.
So git-up, old mule. You’ve still got a few more fields to go.
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