An Invitation

Dear Robin,
Hi. It’s me. I know it’s been years ...
The idea of writing to you again has been floating around in my head for nearly a year. But between track practice, gymnastics, basketball, and piano, or laundry and dinner, or reading and planning for class, the idea that “I’ll get to it tomorrow” turns into next week or next month when track season is over or my student portfolios are graded. But when I get to tomorrow or next week or next month, there’s always a new set of things waiting for me, leaving the idea of “letters to Robin” tucked away for “some day.”

But lately, “writing letters to Robin” has been so prevalent and immediate that I do it in my head each morning. In that brief moment when I’m just awake, but not yet ready to get out of bed, I compose letters to you about what we’ve been doing in the Hein House. Sometimes I tell you why I loved my students (or hated my students), about Andrew’s “girlfriend,” or what Adrienne said when we had to have one of our cats put down.

I don’t know why, while lying in my bed, I get such a clear vision of you at your mailbox followed by fragments of story. For whatever reason, you seem to be a muse of some sort. Or maybe the whole thing is logical and it’s just the universe showing me the way. Here’s what I mean:

A few months ago Eric challenged me to finally write the book I’ve talked about writing for years. He’s tired of me complaining about wanting to be a writer, but never writing. And he’s tired of me whining about bloggers that get book contracts and how I always say, “someday…I’ll get to it someday.” He says I’m all excuses and no action and that if I took action magic surely would happen.

In the past when he’s said this to me, I’ve tried to explain to him that although I’ve always talked about writing a book, I don’t really have a clear idea of what that book would be about.

His response has been “just start writing and I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

My response to that has been, “It doesn’t work that way! Writers usually know the story they want to tell before they start writing the story. Duh! ”

But lately I’ve had to admit to myself that I’ve been trying to figure out my story for about twenty years now. And that is just pitiful. So Eric is right…
And actually, what Eric has been telling me is what I tell my own students. In the composition course I teach at Valparaiso University, I tell my class, “Just get started with something and keep writing, the bigger picture will eventually emerge. Trust the process.”

After a two year hiatus from writing (in favor of teaching and reading student writing), I need my own place to get started, a place where the bigger picture will eventually emerge. And you’re the only person I could think of who might care to read my ramblings. Or better yet, might get a kick out of them. And in some strange way, your showing up in my foggy morning brain at some fictitious mailbox convinces me that you’re part of the plan. So I’ll be here once a week with a story of some sort, a thought, a memory, a rant, or a rave. I don’t know what will happen, but I do know it’s time to get started. I hope you’re in.