Writing The More The Merrier – Celebrating Seventy

I love a project. When I turned seventy I thought I’d take a deeper look at my life and at what aging might look like.

I’ve kept journals for thirty-five years, mostly because I believe in keeping track of both family history and history in the wider sense. I like to think that my words might prove helpful someday, somehow to someone.

In the archives of this literary journal you are reading now you’ll find several pieces by myself. Two of them from 2016 might be of interest to those of you who have an interest in recording your life. (See ‘Why You Should Keep A Journal’ and ‘How To Use Memories To Enhance Your Writing.’)

I thought that keeping a different sort of journal might be a good idea for my big birthday year. Perhaps something more intentional, more about what life looked like in 2017/2018, from my perspective. I have a sense that people value only journals and memoirs that are produced by big names. I almost never want to read those. I want to read memoirs by people like myself, who live more ordinary lives that are filled with the diurnal and the turning of the seasons. I sought out journals in used bookshops and online sales by those honest, everyday you-and-me people who write for the love of it, who weren’t searching for fame because of it.

I made up my mind that my Seventies journal would include not only the usual rhythms of life (dentist, groceries, what we had for dinner) but the music that affected me, the books I’ve enjoyed, the friends I saw, the things my grandchildren said, the humour in the day, the garden, details of what was happening in the forest on my nearby hill. All of life. That’s what I wanted to cram into it. All of that life that made Edna St. Vincent Millay say “World, world, I cannot hold thee close enough”.

So I began my trek with words and new ideas on August 23 and closed it off the following year on the same date. And inside of that year I crammed my moments. It brought me closer to the value of time.

I had, when I turned sixty-three, decided I’d learn how to play cello. I’m big on the concept of brain plasticity and how new learning can produce new neurons. I promised myself I’d keep it up. You might be wanting to ask me at this point “ So how did that go for you?” I’m happy to say it went well and I tracked my lessons with my new teacher in my book.

This project made me think more deeply about my days and everything in them. So what was the name of that bird I saw twittering on my way down the hill? Never before had I so enjoyed the small garden we kept. The sweet peas that crawl over my neighbours fence to visit our side, the soft pink larkspur that sprang up out of nowhere, the goldfinches that danced along the fence to get at the zinnias; it all burst into new life for me because I was taking more notice.

Childhood memories got a good workout too. I mined deep. Now and again the motherlode burst open and offered me up a thought I hadn’t had since I was seventeen. The antique flowered teapot my friend brought onto her porch one day led to a discussion about the small antique shop in the town in which we grew up. I thought about the owners who reminded me of characters in a Barbara Pym novel.

I found quotes in the journals I have of other people’s lives and added those onto the pages with corresponding dates, so if in December of her own seventieth year American poet May Sarton said “ I feel as if I have been climbing the Christmas mountain for weeks” I took it as an invitation to extrapolate on her idea and add my own thoughts on that same date in my own life.

Every single tiny thing took on more interest. I quoted the words on a bag of seeds/nuts/grains we’d bought to put in the bird feeder because never before had I noticed that they were for “Blue Jay’s, Cardinals, Goldfinches, Evening Grosbeaks.” Why did that small detail gain in importance? I don’t know why, but it did. I was noticing more.

I wrote about the young man who we found out on our porch pleading for help one dark Autumn morning and about how a jazz pianist played Cannonball Adderley’s Mercy Mercy Mercy at church one morning, I talked about how I feel when I listen to Copland’s Appalachian Spring and how it makes me visualize the greening of the earth.

It was important to me that I recognize the many men, women and children I’ve had the joy to meet as newcomers to Canada. All of these elements blended into this thing of mine, this intriguing mix I call “my life”.

You might discover new notions, new ideas, new interests about yourself if you decide to try something similar. At the very least it’s wonderful writing practice.

We only have one turn at this. We really should make sure that others know we passed this way and in what manner we did it.

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Judy Pollard Smith decided to write her second book, in the form of a year-long daily log, when she turned seventy. She wondered how other people would perceive her knowing that she looks seventy on the outside while inside beats the heart of her younger self. She still loves Credence Clearwater Revival and can sing every word to every Gordon Lightfoot song that carried her through her youth. What does it mean to age and how can we maximize our days?

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips