We sat on a circle on the deck, warming in the sun as we
wrote poetry. Nearby, the river rushed noisily toward the sea. Squirrels chased
each other down the spruce tree and across the deck while a doe silently
watched from a few feet away. This was the scene during my mornings last week
at the Fishtrap writers workshop in Eastern Oregon.
Writers from all over the country gathered to study with experts in all
different types of writing. I was one of a dozen in Holly Hughes’ poetry class, a
wonderful blend of meditation, mindfulness and creative writing. We writers
quickly bonded. There were young people here, too, participating in a program
for teens. Young or old, parents or not, married or not, it didn’t matter
because we had come together to do something we love. More than spouses or
parents or grandparents, we were writers. And I did not feel bad even once
about not having children.
In contrast, when I got back to the real world, I visited
The Grotto in Portland, which is
like a giant Catholic garden, with sculptures and paintings telling the stories
of Jesus, Mary and Joseph amid the trees and flowers. Recorded music plays
above an outdoor chapel as you walk through the gardens, pausing to think about
the Bible stories depicted in the art. It’s lovely, but it’s also full of
people with their kids. I was walking through the rose garden when I heard a
child call “Baba!” I turned to see a woman about my age stop and hold her arms
open wide as her granddaughter ran into her embrace. Suddenly I wanted to weep.
I had been looking at religious
scenes for 45 minutes, feeling nothing, but this I felt. It was one of those
moments. If you’re childless, you know what I mean.
But let’s get back to the joy of Fishtrap. If we immerse
ourselves in things we love, we can stop dwelling on the children we don’t have
and just enjoy being with people who like to do the same things we like to
do. There were some people at Fishtrap who were not writers, who had come as chaperones
for their teen-aged kids. And you know what? I felt sorry for them because they
always had to worry about the kids. I didn’t have to worry about anyone but
myself. I was totally free to write and think and make new friends.
The moral of this story is that you can find relief from
your grief by immersing yourself in something you love. It doesn’t have to be
writing; it can be anything that takes you out of yourself and into something
that captures your mind and heart.
Is there something you can do, someplace you can go to give
yourself that Fishtrap feeling?
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