When you get old enough
to have a significant block of life to look back on, you realize that
life is a string of phases--some big, some small. In my twenties
I went through a cooking phase. For three years I never cooked
the same meal twice. Now you can't drag me into the kitchen.
It's take-out or my husband cooks (and he's good at it, maybe he's in a cooking phase). I quilted until my index finger and thumb were
calloused and crimped. I restored houses--seven of them.
One was a Revolutionary War Headquarters and Washington really did
sleep there. The oldest was a 1710 sawmill. If I ever
move again it will be into a very modern green house.
And
then there are the professional phases...
When
I graduated from the University of Vermont with a BS in Mathematics
teaching jobs were scarce. I modeled for a year to pay the rent
until I landed a part-time teaching job at
Dover-Sherborn High School in Massachusetts.
I had a wonderful four years--the kids were terrific, but part time
didn't quite cover the mortgage, so I moved on to the next phase--engineering.
My new job was in diagnostics on the Patriot Missile.
I spent a lot of nights on the red-eye flying to White Sands, New
Mexico, to test our work in the field. The people at Raytheon
were fabulous--bright, dedicated engineers. But I missed teaching.
Mostly, I missed the kids. I still had the mortgage to think
about so I took on an evening job
teaching calculus at Northeastern University.
The kids were a little bigger, and my days were a lot longer, but
I was doing what I loved so I didn't mind--until I got pregnant.
Boy, was I ever sick. I had to quit both jobs to spend the next
three months with my head in a bucket.
Some elements of our lives
are not phases at all, but part of who we are. I probably will never
stop being a student. When I was teaching high school I worked
on my master's in mathematics (Stochastic Theory for you math nerds
out there) at
After my kids
were born I took classes from nearby colleges--
Harvard for writing when we lived in Boston,
Florida Atlantic University for
an MBA when we lived in Palm Beach.
I think my need to study is what attracted me to writing.
Research is integral to writing--if it's not about the craft of writing
(there is always more to learn there), it's about something that is
going into your book. Sometimes a writer will read a stack of
books just to capture a single sentence (which they may later take
out!). When I wrote for Oxford University I felt as if I were
getting paid to get a master's in anthropology, archaeology, and Egyptology. I
was paired with amazing experts who guided my research--recommending
reading, answering questions, and sharing their extraordinary life
experiences. With each new book I find new worlds to explore...
Until the next phase...
