...the
most daring thing is to create stable communities in which
the
terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
Kurt
Vonnegut
This is the second in my series on
creating community. In this post, I’m featuring the Cincinnati Writing Group I
was invited to join in 2010. Writing is such a solitary activity, it's important to get together sometimes to break our isolation.
Back row: Jennie, Kate, Lynn, Jean
Front row: Linda, Gary, Isabelle
Two years after semi-retirement, I
had a cancer experience. The year before had been a tough one. Three members of
my family died within seven months of each other. I read in O. Carl Simonton’s
book, Getting Well Again, it’s not
unusual to develop cancer after suffering a significant loss. Fortunately for
me, I had a highly treatable form, lymphoma, and have been in remission for
over five years. During the time of treatment, I kept my friends up-to-date on
my progress through the Caring Bridge site.
Two of my friends were in a writing
group that had been meeting for several years. A couple of their members had moved away and they were looking for a
couple more. One day I received an e-mail from Jean, “You’re a good writer. We’d
like to invite you to join our writer’s group.”
They knew my friend,
Kate, also a writer. When Kate heard about my invitation, she wanted to join,
too. So, once a month, Kate and I head for Cincinnati, join the group, and usually
have a bite to eat afterwards before heading back home to Dayton.
We are not a critique group. We
choose a topic and the seven of us write a couple of pages and bring it to read
to the group at our next meeting. It is amazing the diversity of approaches to
our topics, ranging from humor to philosophy to poetry. We all write with a
self-reflective component focusing on our spiritual growth. Some of our topics
include:
Listening
Reflections
on Aging
What my
Soul Tells Me
What is my
Element?
What’s
Right about Me?
What
Surprises Me about Myself?
Where am I
Headed?
What Stops
Me?
Since I’ve been nearing the end of writing
my memoir, A Long Awakening to Grace, I’ve expressed a need for more
feedback about my writing.
Our Cincinnati group met last week Friday and I read my piece on our
topic: What Christmas Means to Me in
2014. Immediately after I finished reading,
the positive feedback began. What I heard is...
Your
writing is really improving.
Your piece
is coherent.
You took
us on a journey with you.
Your theme
is clear throughout.
You are
really honest with yourself.
And when I mentioned not being able to write in the poetic way some authors do, Jean, who teaches memoir added, “I think your piece is poetic.”
Wow!! As you can imagine, this
feedback brought a smile to my face. It gives me hope that my story, which I
know is a compelling one, is written well. The workshops and classes I’ve been
taking are reaping rewards.
It gives me great pleasure to be learning new skills in retirement and to consider myself a life-long learner.
I’d love
to hear from you:
How do your
communities put a smile on your face?
What is a new area of learning in your life?
