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Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Tuesdays

By Lyn Burnstine The Lynamber Times

Tuesdays are fast becoming my favorite days. Thursdays have been my favorites heretofore, because of their delicious menus of half-hour lazy swims in warm water, great forty-five-minute water exercise classes for arthritics (moving gently to dreamy new-age music) followed sometimes by a hot tub soak, sometimes just a hot shower and shampoo.

As if that weren’t enough, Thursday evenings begin with a two-hour writing group with people I adore and have worked with for years, cheerfully helping each other edit our writing. I go home and eat yummy food while I watch a favorite TV show taped earlier.

What could be better, you ask? Well, maybe not better, but equally wonderful - on Tuesday mornings I meet with several other women in the charming little library in the senior residence in which I’ve lived for eleven years, and guide them through writing exercises on “Writing Your Life Story.”

These women, dear friends all, are my age or older, late sixties to well into their eighties. They are bright, active, funny, supportive and beautiful. And what stories they have to share! We laugh and cry together.

Occasionally some of us go out to lunch together after the workshop. Two of us have published books. I have offered to help one of them try to write and publish her amazing story. Another needs a little help with the editing of her almost-ready-to-publish book and I plan to help her with that.

It has taken me a dozen years of retirement to have the “literary” life I saw for myself then. Part of my reason for taking a slightly early retirement was because I was deep into the research and writing of my first book and wanted to have my “May Sarton life” - writing all morning, then spending the afternoons socializing and doing other favorite hobbies.

It never worked that way. Being obsessive about anything I’m wrapped up in, I ended up working at the computer some days for twelve hours, some days not at all. In those years, I’ve written and published three books, and loved doing that (sometimes hated it, but that’s another story), but this life right now - sweetened by occasional readings, a monthly literary open mic coffeehouse and now belonging and lots of lengthy email conversations - is the writing life I wanted and have finally achieved.

Probably the best part of it all is that the writing and the socializing are all mixed up together. The people in my two writing groups have become treasured friends; the groups function secondarily as support groups.

Fortunately, I never envisioned earning money as an end result! Success is not always measured monetarily.

[EDITORIAL NOTE: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. Instructions are here.]

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