Little things are bigger in a place called home

I was in my hometown the past few days—getting to see people I love, do things I enjoy, visit places I cherish. 

I spent time with my parents and my young adult grandson, I attended a writer’s workshop and concert at Carl Sandburg’s birthplace, and I visited two libraries that helped in many ways to nurture my interests and provide resources as I completed my late-in-life college degree. 

It’s funny how such things, which appear small on first glance, can be so large when viewed through a stronger lens. 

My parents, as do I, continue to grow older – no brilliant observation, but one that grows clearer over time. Our time together, because of this, becomes more precious with each visit.

My grandson, once in our lives day in and day out, has grown up and no longer lives in the same community in which we do. It’s a joy to get to know the older him as he discovers who he is and where his life will take him.

The Sandburg Days writer’s workshop, an annual affair for me for a number of years, has become with distance a rare treat. Yet each time I attend, regardless of presenting author, I grow myself as a writer – and remember with renewed clarity how much and why I love what I do – putting words on paper.

Something that I find most encouraging about Galesburg’s event in honor of its hometown poet is the way the “Festival for the Mind” celebrates a diversity of arts, from poetry to photography, from encouraging budding writers to showcasing gifted musicians. It’s a special treat when one of those musicians happens to be a high school classmate come back to the ‘Burg to play a few tunes. 

I can’t remember a time I didn’t love books or libraries – from the first ones my mother read to me as a small child, to the ones I chose from book order forms in elementary school, to the diversity of genres I’ve savored as an adult. 

One thing is certain. No matter what community I called home through the years, one place always made it so – the library. And, of all the libraries I’ve visited in the past six decades, two stand out above all others – the Galesburg Public Library and Seymour Library at Knox College. 

At tables in the corners each of these repositories, I took sanctuary so I could study in tranquility. In the stacks I found books about subjects I was assigned and those I enjoyed. I savored and used as reference volumes about regional topics, looked with longing at names of people from West Central Illinois who worked with words – Carl Sandburg, Earnest Elmo Calkins, John E. Hallwas, Martin Litvin and more. 

As I did, I often mused, “Someday, perhaps, my name will be found upon these shelves.”

Though it still doesn’t appear as author, today I delivered to the archives at each library a volume I had the privilege to see even before it was a book – “Abraham Lincoln Traveled this Way: The America Lincoln Knew“ with photographs by McLean County’s Robert Shaw and narrative by Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame. 

Way in the back, on a line that credits those who helped to edit the copy, you’ll find this name: Ann Tracy Mueller. 

It’s a little thing – that string of 15 letters and two spaces – but gigantic to a former Galesburg resident who hoped for a half-century to add, if even a little, to the literary tradition of her hometown. 

In a way, perhaps, I have. 

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013

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A shower of words

If you’re a writer or someone who whips up dreams or solves problems, you know how the best brain blasts always come at the most inopportune times—such as when you’re in the shower.

For me it never fails, I’ve slept like a rock, exhausted from writing for days on end, or I’ve tossed and turned all night, listening as my muse tell me where it’s taking me next in my latest written work. The ideas either come or they don’t, but one thing is for certain. As I stand in the shower, the words come pouring down faster than the drops of water. I’m there with no pen, no paper, and a shower of words and ideas that would drown a cruise ship. 

To celebrate a special anniversary last year, my husband tried hard to get me to go to Hawaii—the real place—but because we were planning to move at the time, making job changes, and more, I said, “No, not now, please.”

The week of anniversary rolled around and I drove from our new home in Missouri to the apartment he was renting near his job in Illinois until his pending retirement date. 

We left the apartment one morning to go out for a nice lunch, run some errands, and leave for our destination. 

Remember how I said, “Not Hawaii. Not this year.”

He took me anyway. 

We opened our motel room and saw a rainforest shower, a volcano pouring into our hot tub, a sauna, and a room with thatched roof and tiki torches. We were in Hawaii—on the prairies of Illinois. He’d rented us one of those themed hotel rooms. The atmosphere of the islands was there—for a whole lot less money. 

We, both in our sixties, were like a couple of little kids in that room, hoping from one attraction to the next, giggling when we discovered a bidet in the Jack and Jill bathroom. 

We were having a wonderful time, until I decided to take a shower. This rainforest didn’t just have trees and tropical vegetation painted on the walls, it also had shower heads with all sorts of knobs and spouts and sprayers. I turned it on, and the next thing I knew water was coming at me from everywhere.  It was pounding my yes, drenching my hair, beating against my body. It was liquid sensory overload. 

And, it was a lot like those word showers I have at home, when the story or blog or news article ideas come when I don’t have a waterproof pen and paper, a bucket in which to catch the ideas before they are lost forever down the drain. 

A big fluffy towel helped me to wipe the water from my eyes, to see my Hawaiian room again on that special vacation day. 

Maybe that’s why the torrents of words come pouring down on me at home, so that as I step from the shower, and pat myself dry, the best ideas have soaked through to my core, to fall as thoughts onto a page, helping me to bring my readers to our destinations in the posts within this blog. 

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013

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It matters. Here’s why

A couple weeks ago, as I was wrapping up my day as a writer and editor, I mentioned to a colleague that I was going to grab a bite to eat, and squirrel away in my room with my laptop and a cup of coffee to begin reading more than 70 newspaper articles for a press association contest I had volunteered to judge. 

She wrote back, “GEEEEZ! Why are you volunteering to judge?? That sounds like a nightmare!”

Immediately, my fingers went into defense mode. 

“You want to know why?” I thought. “HERE’S WHY!” 

Ask any seasoned communicator and they’ll tell you that using all capital letters is shouting, so as much as I wanted to shout, I left those thoughts off the page. 

Instead my answer went something like this: 

“I vowed when I moved to my new community that I’d volunteer where my talents matter most, doing things others can’t. Much of that will be communication-related. I follow an area press association on Facebook. They are judging an award competition for another association, just as someone else will volunteer to judge for their awards. 

“In the past, I’ve also done this sort of thing for industry organization award programs and scholarship competitions. I’m working with a local organization on its leadership program, too. 

“It’s my way of giving back for all the support I’ve received from others through the years. Without the example, guidance, and encouragement of other professional writers and editors, I wouldn’t be doing this for a living today. 

“It matters.”

I guess I shocked my colleague as much as if I had “shouted” at her, for she wrote back right away, “You’re exactly right. It does matter.” 

Then she wrote, “I hope you weren’t offended by my question,” and suggested that perhaps I had a story here, about why volunteering matters. 

Gee, do you think? 

After all, I’d almost written the thing already, hadn’t I? 

“Yeah,” I wrote back. “I probably should.”

I thought back to the touch others’ volunteer efforts have had on my life and my career. 

As a writer—absolutely. And in other ways, too.

When I submitted my first paid book review to a contest sponsored by my local chapter of the Association of Women in Communication, it was a volunteer communicator somewhere who judged it. The award encouraged me to keep writing.

Later, I submitted other entries. Again, volunteers judged my work. 

When the appeal came to our chapter to judge entries for another state, I didn’t see it as an obligation. I saw it as a privilege. How rewarding to see the work of other writers and to play a part in acknowledging them for their works of excellence.

But even before that, there were volunteers at work in my life—the fourth-grade teacher who gave up some of her nights and weekends to lead our church choir, the high school student who spent a week in the summer and one afternoon a week during the school year working with my Girl Scout troop, the parents and teachers who chaperoned our high school dances. 

My life was touched by each of them. From the choir director, I learned to appreciate Latin. From the Girl Scout, still a friend today, I learned that dreams are worth pursuing. From a pair of chaperones who loved to do the polka, I learned you’re never too old to live life with gusto. 

Fifteen hours of reading later, the newspaper articles are judged. 

Those small town journalists painted pictures of their communities that made me feel as if I knew their residents and made me wish I lived where they did. They entertained me, amazed me with their talents as writers and storytellers, and made me feel as fortunate to read their work as they will feel when they receive their honors. 

We all need a little encouragement through life, a nudge to go after the things that matter to us, a pat on the back for a job well done. 

I’ve been blessed again and again to be on the receiving end when people volunteer their time and their talents. When asked, I’ll volunteer mine. 

Why? 

It matters. That’s why.

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013

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A balancing act

Early last year, I wrote a blog post titled, “Looking for balance—have you seen her?” In it, I talked about how I’m not a resolution setter, but said that, if I were, the one thing I hoped to find during the year was balance. 

I’m a person prone to obsessions—blogging, studying Abraham Lincoln, working out to excess—or not. Sometimes I’m really into something, to the exclusion of all the things “normal” people do—things like socializing, making day trips, shopping, or even just chilling.

Rarely, through the years, have I taken time to enjoy doing things with my hubby, friends, and family, to savor time in my home, to visit local sites of interest and attend community festivals. 

When I wrote that post in January 2012, I’m not sure I really knew what “balance” would look like, feel like. I just wondered if perhaps it might be an interesting, perhaps even a worthwhile thing to try.

As it does many years, the “year of balance” didn’t turn out quite as I’d planned. Sooner than we expected, our home sold, my husband retired, we moved out of state. 

Looking back, I barely remember the first three months of the year. The rest of it was so busy that first quarter feels like a fog, as if I were a player who lost memory of the early part of the game due to a concussion. I worked at my job, I tackled odd jobs on two homes, and I worked on my blog. 

By April, though, it was evident my life was completely out of balance for the time being. Our Illinois home had sold, and we’d begun moving our belongings to our new home in Missouri. By the end of the month, I was in the house with boxes and boxes of books, what seemed like tons of furniture and household belongings, and no husband. He’d stayed behind, renting an apartment in Illinois until his retirement date later in the year. 

It was just as well. I didn’t have time for a hubby right then anyway. I was putting things in their places, painting walls, and supervising tradesmen who were making the older home into which we moved “new” to us. 

By the time hubby moved down, the house was nearly in order—inside, at least—and, because he was retired, we were almost beginning to live like regular people. I’d work during the day and we could actually do things together on nights and weekends. 

We hung out with neighbors, joined some organizations in our community, found a church home, had guests a time or two, went to visit our kids and our extended family, and attended an apple festival, a turkey festival, and a fly-in. 

About that resolution I mentioned, but refused to make, in fear of breaking it, at the beginning of 2012—a desire to find balance in my life—I think I’m actually almost finding it. 

Our home is coming around. We’ll tackle the outside tasks and some storage-area organization next year. 

We enjoyed time with loved ones and made new friends, and sometimes just sat on the porch relaxing. The winter holidays were the most stress-free ever, yet extremely pleasant and heart-warming. I’ve begun doing some volunteering in efforts where I feel I can be of most help.

I think I can say my life had balance by the end of the year in all but one thing—my writing. 

Though I write and edit nearly every day for my “real” job, in the search for balance and in putting our new home in order, I seem to have misplaced my personal words. They must not have been packed with the work words. 

Do you suppose if I imagine them springing out of my desk drawer as a jack-in-a-box each day, that some of them might find their way onto the page? 

Perhaps—but just in case that doesn’t work, I’ve got a sticky note on my daily calendar. It says, “Did you blog today?” 

With a reminder such as that one, I’ve got no excuse, right? 

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013

If you liked this post, see my earlier Musings on Route 66 posts here. 

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