The magazine had printed an excerpt from Gilman’s newest book, “A New Kind of Country.’’ And though the story was about her, a much older woman than I was back then (she had raised her children and was now taking time for herself), I felt a connection. And in a conversation she imagined she might have with God, I felt something more.
The imaginary conversation went something like this:
It is Judgment Day and God says to Dorothy, “So what did you do with the talents I gave you?’’
And Dorothy hems and haws and says, “Well, um, I was busy with my kids, taking them to hockey practice and baseball and busy with my husband having dinner parties and well, you know. I didn’t have time to use what you gave me.’’
And God looks at Dorothy and says not with anger, but with great love, “But when I gave you those talents, you didn’t have a husband and kids. It was just you. So what did you do with your gifts?’’
It was a lightbulb moment right there in the doctor’s office. What were my gifts and what had I done with them?
Every nun I ever had said I could write. They all gave me As. They called me a writer.
But when I went to a public college and my English teacher said I couldn’t write, I believed her. And I stopped writing, though I never stopped wanting to write.
Now here I was 31, with three little kids, thinking, yes, I would write. I would try. But where to start? What to do? How to begin?
I went to the library and read books about writing. I bought writing magazines. I filled notebooks full of other people’s writings, copying words and phrases and whole paragraphs that I loved. And then I read them out loud. I imitated. I experimented. I practiced.
My father said, “I paid for you to go to school to be a teacher.’’
My husband said, “You don’t get worse at something you do every day. Just keep trying.’’
The first thing I had published was an anti-nuclear power letter to the editor. Three sentences in the Stoughton Chronicle. I bought 10 copies.
