The other day, I received an advert to re-subscribe to the literary magazine, The Sun. This was my first literary magazine and remains my time-honored favorite, due its progressive selection of though-provoking pieces of poetry, short story, and essay. What stood out to me, however, was a haunting name amongst the samples pieces of writing meant to entice me to subscribe to their magazine again (which in all likelihood I will probably do very soon). The name is Chris Dombrowski. I went to Hope College with Chris. I don't remember if I really knew him all that well. I believe he was a few years ahead of me. At the time, I'm not even sure that I knew he was a writing student. Yet, I'm floored every time I see his name out in the world, not just in the writing world, but in the general, slightly marginal, public world. If I was a writer, he would be a contemporary of mine. I am amazed to see someone so close to my tiny world out there writing in the much larger, real world. In fact, his writing shares the same postcard space with the likes of Wendell Berry. Now, that is an accomplishment.
Seeing Chris's writing used as an enticement for me to buy a literary magazine has the potential to put me in a funk. Why is this not my name and my writing here? But then again, I still struggle with the concept of calling myself a writer. I never really set out to become a writer. I had no plans to study creative writing in school. In fact, I had initially planned on being a nurse. My perfectionism had the better of me in that pursuit and I settled on teaching, my back-up plan that continues to be quite fulfilling. But two incidents prompted me to add creative writing to my list of academic pursuits. At Hope College, in Holland, Michigan, you are required to pursue a liberal arts course of study in addition to your major field of study. So the fall of my junior year, I found myself in Writing for Elementary Teachers, well on my way to clicking off the required credits toward my degree. Heather Sellers taught this class and from the first day she became an inspiration to me.
As we introduced ourselves to the class, she told us to share what we would do on a typical Saturday morning. Almost the entire class spook about how they just "hung out with their friends" or "recovered from the night before." Instead, I shared that it was the one day of the week I would wake without my alarm clock. If time was on my side, I'd ride my bicycle to the Farmer's Market and wander up and down the aisles looking for the perfect vegetables to make into my lunch all the while trying to avoid the "Bread Nazi" and his pushy tactics. I would then spend the rest of the day studying or working one of my many part time jobs. She called me out as the one person in the class who actually gave her some interesting information. For me, it was just natural to tell her what I really did. Throughout that semester, her constant encouragement and at some points relentless badgering pushed me toward adding the creative writing minor. Mind you, I was a junior already, I didn't see the feasibility of adding more credit requirements to an already full plate of English, Elementary Education, and General Science. In the long run, the General Science minor ended up suffering the wrath of my creative writing pursuits. Don't fret, though, I finished it later when I returned to grad school.
The other incident of writing inspiration came from Jack Ridl, also a Hope professor. I had known Jack since I was in high school, thanks to a short May-December relationship I had had with one of his students when he was a college senior and I was a high school junior. Jack knew of my interest in writing, thanks to the class Encounter with the Arts, another liberal arts requirement. We were avid correspondents through the journal that was required for the class. Well, one chilly winter day, I was just walking along the sidewalk back to my apartment, when a slightly beat up European car stopped in its tracks alongside me. I believe this must have been my senior year. Stepping out of his car, Jack approached me with the question, "What do you think you're doing?" I was thoroughly confused. I was walking and I said as much.
"No," he replied, "what are you doing taking the beginning poetry class?"
"What do you mean? Am I not good enough?"
"Quite the opposite, young lady!" He admonished.
"Oh, it's the only one that fits into my schedule." It was always really hard to get a class with Jack. They filled up so quickly; he is an amazing soul, teacher, and man. People are just drawn to him. "I was lucky to even get into that class."
"Are you sure you can't make the intermediate class work?"
I just couldn't, but it didn't matter. That vote of confidence in my writing was what finally made me think that one day I just might become a writer. I've been writing ever since college off and on for the past eighteen years, but I'm still not sure that I would call myself a writer. In high school, I would write about a large apothecary style jar that would sit on my desk waiting to collect words, but at that time it felt so empty. In my head, I believed that if only I could fill that jar, then maybe I could be a writer. Now, I don't sense the emptiness of that jar and I've had the experiences to provide writing material for another lifetime, and yet, I still don't feel that I'm a writer. Is it publishing that makes one a writer? Is that what has put Chris Dombrowski in the same playing field as Wendell Berry? I'm not sure. For me, I feel that I have three jars now on my desk. One filled with amazing words. Another overflowing with experiences that have touched me, changed me, and continue to form me. And lastly another, one that is more ethereal, and in this jar I must take my words and my experiences, place them in the jar bits at a time in a way that finds meaning and depth that I can then convey to a reader. Only then when I master the use of this jar, will I truly be a writer.
