100 Days
- I have gotten up for every morning for 100 days.
- I have written for 50 hours in those mornings (and sometimes more on the weekends).
- I have drunk 100 cups of tea from my thermos.
- I have filled 3 1/2 notebooks (and just started a new one).
- I have written 10 poems.
- I have written 1 essay.
- I have written 2 short memoir pieces.
- I have read 4 books of poetry by fellow AROHO writers Diane Gilliam, Ruth Thompson, Barbara Rockman and Leslie Ullman.
- I have written an estimated 200 words per page (since I am one of those neat freaks who fill the entire surface of every page with writing, I was able to extrapolate this amount by counting the words on a random number of pages).
I talked to my new AROHO friend, Tania Pryputniewicz about my dilemma in the Albuquerque Airport. I made a pact with her that I would write every afternoon after returning from school. Did I keep it up? Nope. I found my mind too filled with all the noise of the day to keep myself writing.
Then this year, at the Albuquerque Airport once again, I made another pact with Barbara Yoder. This time I vowed that I would get up early every day. I had been resisting this idea for years, but had finally faced the fact that early morning was the only time I could reliably call all my own. Did I think I would be able to do it? I admit I was skeptical. I still doubted myself. But here I am 100 days later...
Now that I've finally given myself the gift of time, I feel I've joined those two sides of myself. Although there are many times of conflict when the stresses of teaching keep my from writing as much as I wish, I now know I can always find that morning time to sit quietly with the my notebook.
So on this day before Thanksgiving, I can only say thank you to all the wonderful women writers of AROHO who have helped me find my way.