Picking Up the Pen Again
Making a New Start on a Never-Ending Story
Dear Reader,
Wherever you are, you’re here, inhabiting this space, and in so doing, you’ve invited me into yours.
So now that you’re here, what can you expect to find? Think of this as less of a blog than a memoir in motion of my adventures (or misadventures) navigating the world with my self-deprecating wit in one hand and my white cane in the other. Whether I’m trying to solve a particular pedagogical puzzle, reflecting on my journey through the world as a woman of faith, or ruminating on whatever I happen to be watching or reading at the moment, if I’m living it, I’m probably writing about it.
Stories have always been how I make sense of the world, so writing has always seemed a natural outlet. The world is full of chaos; writing is my attempt to bring order to it. For me, writing isn’t an art form. It’s a primal itch. It’s how I engage with a world I can’t see. It’s why, as often as I’ve put down my pen over the years, I’ve returned to it again, because the primal itch will always need to be scratched. Yet this itch isn’t merely an urge to record, but rather to reach out, because a story only finds meaning if a reader inhabits that space. I teach my students that writing can’t exist in a vacuum; when we write, we’re bearing witness to something we want to share, so there’s always a purpose for writing that extends beyond ourselves.
My writing journey dates back to 2010 as a struggling doctoral student in English surviving on a diet of dreams and dollops of peanut butter, praying Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth edition) would come to rescue me from my misery. When I wasn’t attempting to complete my dissertation, blogging became a kind of pressure release valve. While I sometimes tracked page-counts of dissertation chapters in a nod to Bridget Jones-style calorie counting, mostly, I just wrote. The only rules were mine, namely to indulge in the pure pleasure of writing in a space unfettered by the chains of academic expectations. My think-pieces on everything from Braille literacy to book reviews amassed a small following that eventually led to a short stint in freelance writing as a stopgap between online tutoring work and applying for tenure-track teaching positions.
I eventually secured the coveted teaching position, and if I weren’t Catholic and didn’t already believe in the existence of Purgatory, the five-year tenure track would have convinced me that it is in fact real. There’s a twisted irony in an English professor teaching writing and having little time to devote to practicing the craft, but I resigned myself to sitting in that uncomfortable fractured space until I could mend it.
If purpose moves the pen, it naturally follows that the pen ceases to move when the purpose is lost. I no longer remember precisely where or when I misplaced my purpose, but in the midst of climbing the tenure ladder with one hand and holding my life steady with the other, Covid happened. The pandemic was the punctuation at the end of every sentence. The entire world seemed at once to be standing still and spinning out of control, and no one knew quite how to articulate what was happening. When I endeavored to write anything, I felt stuck in the same lockdown loop as everyone else, and writing a grocery list, let alone an entire blog post, required more words than my brain had the capacity to formulate.
Then I emerged from the end of the world, the Earth tilted back into position, and I found myself on solid ground again. I circled the idea of returning to the blog, but without any real conviction to move forward. After securing tenure and settling into what felt like a comfortable work/life balance, I noticed the writing itch tickling the corners of my brain until I could no longer ignore the urge to scratch. I needed to write again, but why, and about what? The answer I kept returning to was simple: whatever was in my heart that I felt moved to share.
I felt called to bear witness to something, and finally that something crystallized for me a few months ago while rewatching a scene from Season 3 of The Chosen, a television series that dramatizes the life of Jesus and is one of my absolute favorite shows. The moment occurs during a conversation between one of the disciples, Little James (played by Jordan Walker Ross) and Jesus (played by Jonathan Roumie). Jesus has just commissioned the disciples to go out two by two, preaching the gospel and healing the sick. Little James has extreme difficulty walking, and toward the end of the episode, he asks Jesus, point-blank, why he hasn’t been healed if Jesus has given him the power to heal others. Jesus’s answer hits the bullseye, because of course it does, because he’s Jesus:
In the Father’s will, I could heal you right now, and you’d have a good story to tell, yes?...but think of the story that you have, especially in this journey to come, if I don’t heal you; to know how to proclaim that you still praise God in spite of this…to show that you can be patient with your suffering here on earth because you know you’ll spend eternity with no suffering.
The pathos in this moment lands largely because Jordan Walker Ross has scoliosis and cerebral palsy, so this call to bear witness that Jesus invites Little James to answer isn’t merely performative. It’s deeply personal, and it runs counter to the myth that people with disabilities can only bear witness to how Christ works in our lives if we’re healed. The moment also hits home for anyone like me who lives in a body that isn’t considered “normal.” Jesus is encouraging Little James to bear his suffering with patience precisely because in this moment, his patience is being tested. He’s been carrying this cross for his entire life, and he’s aching with the weight of it. Never as a person with a disability had I felt so seen as I did while watching that exchange. My lack of patience is the cross whose weight I tend to buckle under more often than not, but this is my reality. It’s not miraculous, not in the jaw-dropping, raising Lazarus or healing the blind man way that we tend to associate with miracles. It’s just bearing witness to life, and by sharing my story, perhaps someone will see the reflection of their own.
This is the purpose of my pen. Welcome to Quill and Grace, Reader. I’m glad you’ve come, I’m glad you’re here, and I hope, most of all, that whatever you’re seeking in this space, you find it.