The First (Small) Chapter

1 Rumors • How it Begins



I am trying to have a conversation about writing. About how I can’t write anymore. Or at least how I can’t seem to write anything sustained. My older daughter Sara is trying to listen in, as is her way these days.



“Can you find me some water?” I ask. I’ve been sitting at this picnic for hours and really could use a cup of something simple to drink. I could also use a few minutes alone with my friend Anne, to work out this question of writing and creativity and what seems to be standing in my way.



Before I can form another thought, Sara is back. “There are rumors of water,” she says. “But I couldn’t find any.”



“Rumors of water,” I answer. “Now that’s a good book title.”



“It could be about you and your daughters,” says Anne. “How you’re raising them to be so creative.”



I turn this thought around in my mind. “I don’t feel like I’ve finished living that enough,” I say, knowing this is both true and not true at all.



I have been trying to write while raising my girls. I have been struggling. There are days I feel wildly creative; there are weeks when I feel ground down and completely spent. I am trying to show my girls that creativity is theirs for the taking. Sometimes it seems to be. Sometimes I feel the road is so long they will never get where they’re trying to go.



There are so many things standing in my way this morning, I can hardly begin. Yet I’ve heard there are rumors of water. Maybe that is enough.





Floral Designs by my little girl Sonia, at age 11.