A Contemplative Life

October 25, 2018October 24, 2018

My Great-Great-Grandfather Wrote on Barn Walls (or, Some Thoughts on Creativity, and the Cover of My Next Book)

I’m sitting at the small red table beside one of our large living room windows, looking out at James Street. There’s our porch, the wide sidewalk, the busy street. There is the sycamore tree, ancient and leaning, the leaves gently browning in this mid-autumn light. It is 50 degrees and the sun is shining, shining, shining, as if summer is still within its grasp.

My book, Once We Were Strangers, released only last week, but I am in the thick of editing my next novel, one that releases in July of 2019. I can tell you now that it’s called Light from Distant Stars, and it’s the most challenging story I’ve ever tried to write. It is a standalone novel for grownups, not connected with my YA novel The Day the Angels Fell. But I have lots of time to tell you more about that.

What I want to tell you today, or share with you I guess, is the fact that even in the writing of this current book, in working through the edits, I am assailed by voices of self-doubt and questions about my ability to write well. There has been no magic turning point, at least not for me, where I have woken up self-confident and swaggering, convinced that I am finally the writer I have always wanted to be. Not when I co-wrote my first book and saw it in Barnes and Noble in 2008. Not when I signed a contract with my first agent, or landed a book contract, or when The Day the Angels Fell won an award.

And yet. There has been something magical about the last few weeks, a kind of turning point. I have experienced a peace in who I am, in what I write, in the words that I share – no matter the sales numbers, no matter the Amazon rank, no matter the mentions or shares or high-profile praise (or lack thereof). I am determined to enjoy each of my writing days, to work hard at getting better, to read more widely, and to sink deep, deep, deep into the stories I am creating. God is there, somewhere, waiting for me.

I know now that there is no Promised Land in the distance where, once there, I will have arrived – this creative life is nothing but a journey, nothing but one more word, one more sentence, one more chapter, and one more story.

This is what I offer you today, in whatever creative pursuits you are digging into: give yourself the freedom to chase excellence, to go after whatever creative thing is calling your name. Don’t be afraid, and when you are, let it fill you with exhilaration at the risks you are taking. Keep going. Keep moving. Keep breathing. Be present, really present, wherever you are.

This isn’t just for writing – it’s for painting and photography and starting a business and running for office. It’s for when you become a parent or get married or take a trip or start a church. Keep going. Keep moving. Keep breathing.

Anyway, these are my thoughts today, looking out the window onto James Street, watching the traffic go by, pondering a sycamore tree that was probably planted when my great-great-grandfather was a boy – the same man who used to write on the walls of his barn, stories and news and thoughts about life. That is all I am really doing here. That is all any of us are doing.

And here is the cover of my next novel, in case you were interested.

August 31, 2018August 30, 2018

We Drove Out to Where I Grew Up and Found Our Fortune

Lucy and I drove out of the city, east on New Holland Ave and through the traffic lights to the outskirts, where we merged onto the highway. A few exits later, we got off, kept heading east, and soon the pavement and houses gave way to farmers’ fields, long stretches of corn and soybeans, and tobacco already cut and leaning in golden pyramids.

“These are the roads I grew up on,” I said quietly. “These are the miles where I rode my bike.” Lucy looked out over it all.

“It’s very pretty out here,” she said. She is a city girl now. She seems overwhelmed by the serenity of the countryside.

We turned onto the road that led to the farm where I grew up, the farm that sits across from the church and a graveyard and a winding creek (all of which are the backdrop to my first novel, The Day the Angels Fell). The road curved up towards the intermediate school I attended as a teen. We pulled into my uncle and aunt’s driveway and got out.

My uncle came over, joking that he was going to start charging me – it was the second time I’d been there in two weeks, an unusual occurrence. I told him, on the contrary, I thought he should give me frequent flyer miles. Lucy and I hugged him and then walked into the green green grass of their large backyard – the very place Maile and I had gotten married a little over 19 years ago.

We were there to see my dear cousin, visiting from Austin, Texas. And other family members trickled in as they could. Another uncle. Another aunt. Seven or eight cousins. One of my sisters. We sat and we laughed and we told all the old stories and listened to the new ones, knowing that a few of these were the epic tales we would retell the next time we saw each other.

There was only a small portion of us there on Wednesday night – my dad has seven brothers and sisters, and I think I have around 25 cousins on that side, most of whom are now married with kids of their own. But wherever two or three are gathered, you know, and all that.

At one point the sun was setting over the fields and a cool breeze was trying miserably to push away the heat, and I stood against the wooden rails of my uncle and aunt’s gazebo. Right there, Maile and I had said, “I do,” and all of these family members and more had been there with us, witnesses. They had seen us tie the knot. They had welcomed us home when we came back, tails between our legs, a failed business behind us. They had supported my new life as a writer, buying my books, giving me projects. They had celebrated with us as each of children were born, and they mourned with us when Maile miscarried a few days before Grandma Smucker’s funeral.

Lucy came over and stood beside me, grinning.

“What do you think of your wild extended Smucker family?” I said, taking a drink of ice water. She smiled again.

“It’s good.”

I nodded, looking out over the crowd. There are a lot of old aches and pains there, and fresh ones, too. My uncle nearly died in a motorcycle crash some years back, and his walk with its slight limp reminds me of this. Another uncle lost most of his pinky 25 years ago; of course, he just holds it up to his nostril now, scaring all the grandchildren, because it looks like his pinky is all the way up in his brain. Over 40 years ago tragedy took the life of one of my cousins before I was born, and that pain is mostly healed, but ever present. My grandmother died six years ago this fall. There is other deep sadness in our midst, some I’ve heard and some I’ll probably never know about, and struggles that would break my heart.

But there is happiness there, too, and so many years together. There are the new babies bounced on knees and the teenagers finding their way and my cousins now in their thirties and forties and dare I say fifties. Life goes on, and when I am there, among the fields where I grew up, I can feel my roots digging in, drawing from deep, deep wells.

“It is good,” I said, putting my arm around Lucy. “It’s a wealth beyond measure.”

August 30, 2018August 30, 2018

Has Revisiting a Place Full of Good Memories Ever Made You Sad?

The washed out ruts in the lane were so deep we could barely drive through, even in our beastly Suburban. The truck swayed and groaned, but we made it to the first turn, parked, and got out. But even harder to work through were the memories, hanging from the trees like Spanish moss.

The August day was warm but not overbearing, and we hiked along an overgrown path, carrying our things: a tent, sleeping bags, food. We cleared a space in the trees, built a ring of rocks for our fire, pitched the tent. Sam ran off to “hunt” while Abra and I cleared up the campsite, set up our chairs, and hunted for walking sticks.

When Sam came back, the three of us walked back out to the stone lane and down the hill towards the house. There, off in the trees, was where I had first learned to tap maple trees for sap. There, buried under vines and thorns, was the massive oak tree that fell the year we lived here. There, just off the lane, was where the buck had walked beside me one day when I came back in with the mail.

We lived in that cabin in the woods for 14 months in 2013 and 2014, five years ago. Before Leo. Before Poppy. It was a quiet time of life, when we lived 45 minutes from our closest friends and family, 20 minutes from the grocery store. When I worked every day in small second-floor office and the girls slept in the basement and I spent late summer days cutting down dead trees and splitting the wood, preparing for winter.

It was a beautiful, wonderful time. So why, walking down the lane with our two middle children, did I feel such a weight of sadness, such a deep-reaching sense of melancholy?

* * * * *

We walked down behind the cabin, then back up the far hill, following the sweeping path into the woods and around a long circle, back to where we started. We ate hot dogs cooked over the fire and gooey smores and shared a gallon jug of water. Soon, the light was fading, the sun setting somewhere in the west. We sat in our chairs and watched the fire lick the air. We told old stories of when we used to live in that cabin. A blanket of smoke from the wet wood hung around us.

We made our way into the tent, me in the middle sleeping bag, and I read them the first few chapters from The Book of Three. Taran’s pig ran into the woods, and we closed the book, and the woods grew dark. But then the moon rose, so bright it cast tree shadows onto the roof of our tent, and we fell asleep early with dogs barking far in the distance.

* * * * *

What is it about going back to good places that brings sadness to the surface? Is it simply a longing for good times past? Is it the sneaking realization that the rest of life will go just as fast?

For me, I think it was the feeling that those woods, that lane, that cabin, they didn’t remember us. We were strangers there, in a place where we had once been so intimate. And it made me realize that someday all the places I love will not remember me.

But in the midst of this sadness was another realization – today is everything. Today is all we have. I have to hug my children while I can, read to them while I’m able, make memories in these current places so that someday they can come back, they can relive the old days, and they can be reminded that time is fleeting.

This is the gift of time, the gift of memories, the gift of revisiting places that hold meaning for us.

These are my two camping buddies getting ready to head off on their first day of school.

August 29, 2018August 28, 2018

When He was Still a Long Way Off

I sat on the porch in the afternoon and the air was heavy and the sun glared off the barber shop glass. Only a few people walked by, and those who did were weighed down by August. It’s a sullen month, a reluctant month. Even the cars eased their way through the heat, sweating, sighing. I stood and paced, sat back down, stood up and leaned over the iron rails, peered down the street as far as I could see. I sat back down.

My oldest son was coming home from high school, the kid who first made me a dad. My wife has homeschooled him for the last ten years, and it was his first day in public school since kindergarten.

The words from the parable of the prodigal son came to me, dropping into my mind from some long-ago Sunday School class: “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him…” I have never thought of it before, but I wonder now, if the father was in the habit of watching for the arrival of his youngest son. I wonder if he knew the highest points of his property and if he wandered to those places late in the day, staring far off down the road, looking for the old familiar gait, the way his son walked with his head down, the way he swung his arms. I wonder if the father watched until the sun set, and even after that, when he couldn’t see through the dark but would only stand there, staring.

I know I would. I would wait until morning, and then again, and then again. A father’s love for a son is a fierce, aching thing.

And there is God, always waiting for us, merciful, gracious, hoping for our return. If not today, someday. If not at this time, sometime.

* * * * *

While he was still a long way off, I saw him, his lime green shirt, his wild hair, his long, thin, newly-grown-up body that no longer fits in his twin bed. I hopped down the porch stairs, skipping a step, suddenly light, suddenly forgetting August. I walked fast over the cracked cement, the back alley that cuts our block in two, and there he was, crossing Queen, and when I met him I wrapped him in a bear hug, pushed him away, looked into his face, clapped him on the shoulder.

“Look at you,” I said, staring into his face, because he was different, grown, no longer mine, not entirely. We raise these children as best we can, and at some point we send them into the world a gift, taking, we hope, the best of us with them. There is a letting go, and if we don’t allow it to happen, our fingers will tear them, bruise them in the holding. But when we do let them go, what a marvelous and terrible departure! You won’t see another thing like it.

“Look at you,” I said again, laughing out loud.

He grinned a goofy grin, bashful. “Hey, Dad.”

“I’m proud of you,” I said. “I’m really proud of you.”

Will our children ever realize how long we would wait for them?

August 6, 2018August 6, 2018

A Summer Morning in Our Small City

I opened the windows. It was 68 degrees outside, and cool air flowed in over the sill like water pouring into a container. I could hear the traffic on James and Prince. I stepped out onto the front porch. Across the street, the same man stood in the doorway to the apartment building, looking out with blank, quiet eyes. Down the street, a woman sat on her porch, fanning herself, smiling at people who walked by. The barber shop was nearly open. The lights came on. The manager moved slowly on the other side of the glass.

Leo and Poppy played in the living room, and Maile came back in from her run, breathing heavily. It was the middle of July, but it felt like the end of summer was close. I looked out the window again. Poppy came up and grabbed my leg.

“Ug,” she said, her word for hug, and I reached down, picked her up, held her close. Her tiny arms wrapped around me. The sun came up over the buildings on the south side of James. It was another day in the small city of Lancaster. Another day.

Later, I drove away. Traffic stopped. I saw a man. He sat in the morning sun on the sidewalk, sorting through the trash. A few already opened and discarded bags leaned up against the brick house a few feet behind him. He reached in over and over again, deep into the black trash bags, all the way up to his shoulder, fishing around for who knows what. He pulled out a handful of trash, looked through it, and stuffed it back in the bag.

I sat in traffic and watched him. The light turned green. I drove on.

Morning commuters cruised south on Prince Street, the sun getting warmer, the day moving along. On the next block over, a road crew blocked off an intersection, letting one line of cars through at a time. One of the crew, a bearded young man, smoked a cigarette, coughed, let his mind wander, stood there for a moment after the light turned green. Something brought him back, and he waved his orange flag lazily, beckoning the next car through.

August 2, 2018August 1, 2018

“Daddy, what’s inside gum?” and Other Questions

Another 7:00 p.m. finds me in the same place, the same white chair in Leo and Sam’s third-floor bedroom, the dusky light glowing white, Leo sucking on his finger and reaching his foot up towards the ceiling. He barely napped in the truck today while we were going to pick up Lucy, but even a five minute snooze seems to add hours to his day.

“Daddy, why can’t I chew gum in bed?” Leo asks.

It’s nearly a month since my book The Edge of Over There wandered off into the wide world, trying to find its way. Next week Maile and I are driving 20 hours to Minnesota for a book event with my friend, Steve Wiens. When a book is a month old, well, it’s a strange time, because things can start to feel a little quiet. If you’d like to host a little reading in your house, and you think you can get 15 to 20 people there, let me know. I’d love to come hang out and talk about these books of mine.

“Daddy, what’s inside gum?”

Maile’s away tonight and I got Poppy down and once Leo’s down the rest of the night will be in front of me. The older kids can take care of themselves. I’ll get a little work done, maybe play around with the next novel idea I’m working on. Do a little reading. Try not to get to bed too late because early enough Poppy will be shouting from her bed or Leo will come wandering down, needing to use the bathroom. This is the humdrum passing of a life, these quiet days, these uneventful days, and as I get older, I’ve grown to love them, these days when nothing sensational is happening, these days one month after a book release.

“Daddy, why do I have to go to bed?”

Being a writer is such an emotional yo-yo. One week, I’m on top of the world. The next week, I’m wondering if writing is worth it. Worth what? I don’t even know. But I don’t think about it very long, because then another heady day arrives. It’s a constant back-and-forth: confident, doubtful, easy, hard, encouraging, despair, determination, ambivalence. (It took me five tries to type ambivalence before spell-check gave me the all-clear.)

“Daddy, how much longer until I will wake up?”

It’s a good life. Even with all the questions. Maybe because of all the questions. Leo’s. Mine. All of them. Leaning into the questions, the doubts, the wonderings, the curiosities, for me, makes life interesting.