The parable says that there were three men chopping wood all day. Two men worked steadily and never stopped to take breaks during the day. However, one man stopped working several times during the day, and from what the other two observed, he was walking, whistling, smoking cigarettes and generally loitering. However, at the end of the day, when it came time to collect and settle accounts, the first two men were surprised to find that the latter had the most amount of firewood cut, therefore he received the most money.

In amazement, they couldn’t help but ask, “We don’t understand how they cut more firewood than we did. What were you doing when you took those long breaks?”

The last man paused and laughed. Finally, he answered. “I was sharpening my ax.”

This moral could apply to writers today. In this busy world as we know it, everything is dizzying. We use computers to cut our time in half. We send by fax or email
documents to save time. We fly so we can get everywhere faster. So time is of the essence. But at the rate we move through the new millennium, we rarely have enough time to introspect or “sharpen our ax,” a much-needed tool for writers. And in fact, I made this discovery by chance.

In the summer of 1997, despite delays, I decided that taking a train during my vacation would be a desirable mode of transportation. And ironically, during my trip from Los Angeles to my hometown, Detroit, I spoke to many like-minded travelers in my midst who had the same opinion. Anyway, as a writer, I found that during this “downtime” period, there were other fortuitous benefits, of a more spiritual nature, that were a reward on this journey. Trains, for my ancestors, have always had the connotation of freedom. In general, in African American literature, trains have been a symbol of freedom.

Consider “The Underground Railroad.” “The Freedom Train”. In addition, trains have played a significant thematic role in the works of great writers, such as James Baldwin’s “Tell me how long has the train passed” or August Wilson’s play “Two Trains Running.”

And it’s true, as the train rocked back and forth, lulling me to the same reassuring emotions that a crib gives a baby, I somehow felt free. Free from the demands of my social work job. Free from the pressures of my day-to-day writing. Free from rush dizziness.

On the way back to Los Angeles, I reflected on my first visit home since my mother’s death in 1993. I had read somewhere that the death of a father is considered a milestone in life. I also read that, as a writer, our censorship often ends with the death of a parent. Given the fact that I didn’t finish my first novel, The Ebony Tree, until about a year after my mother’s death, maybe that’s true. As I considered the promotion made on my novel while at home, I wondered if I would have had the nerve to do this before my mother’s death. I do not know. But trying to keep your feet on the ground and knowing that this experience has somehow happened to other humans, and that other humans have faced it, has helped.

Due to the slowness of the train, I found myself reflecting on being at the crossroads of my life, career wise. Just as a train is often used as a metaphor for the journey of our lives, delays or derailments often give us a clue as to when we are on the wrong track. Crossroads are the paradox we face when presented with two desirable paths. The paradox is that we can only choose one.

Will we always wonder where we haven’t traveled?

As a writer, I had come to this fork in the road. Should I continue to write full time, or was it possible to continue writing in the evenings and mornings, while working a job that involved writing court reports, dealing with the most complicated family life: families involved in the children’s court system? abuse and neglect?

My answers did not come easily. As I watched the Colorado River unfold and wind behind the train window, I saw people navigating the river. Suddenly, I decided that I wanted to wade rivers, climb mountains, even, if only in my writing. So, I realized that as I overcome my fears as a human being, I will do so as a writer.

Looking out the window at the Rocky Mountains, I remembered the experience of a lifetime. Juggling the demands of young children and working as a social worker during the 1970s, before it was commonplace for mothers of children.
Preschoolers to work, wondering if they had made the right decision, but pushing forward, because nothing else felt right. I remembered the loss of all my comfort zones and adornments when I left Detroit and moved to Los Angeles in 1981.

How, in addition to the unexpected and cataclysmic nature of earthquakes, the figurative basis of my life kept changing under my feet. How there were days when I didn’t think we would get by as a family, or how I could survive disaster after disaster without respite.

I had spent my twenties adjusting to ideas of what others thought I should do. During my thirties I began my forays into the world of writing, first through poetry, then short stories and a failed novel. My early forties were concerned with my first true self-invention, as well as dealing with some of life’s biggest problems.

Get old. Grandmother. But then, on December 1, 1993, without warning, my mother died of a sudden heart attack. All the previous crises, all the previous adversities, were suddenly overshadowed by this tragedy. The demands of life continued, as my pain enveloped everything I touched. From then on, everything was measured in its importance and usually diminished by this “Bigee”. Nothing could intimidate me at work or at home. What used to register on the Richter stress scale for me no longer caused a ripple. And that? If the court is going to sanction you and you are in contempt of court at work for a subpoena you never received, “So be it.” Of course, such a disaster never happened, and now I wonder if my new attitude had something to do with it. My motto at work has become: “There is no emergency. The only emergency is death.”

Then, somewhere, in this twilight zone, state of being, I discovered my right to be heard as a writer. To tell my truth, unapologetic and uncensored. Through the darkest days, teetering on the edge of resistance, I survived. In time, I was cured. And my writing returned. Renovated. Stronger than ever.

Sweet adversity. Lesson learned. We are all mortal. It is from our mortality that we create immortality: our art, our writing, our music.

Recently, at a small book signing before a group of women, a reader complimented the main character in my story.

“Jewel (the main character) reminds me of myself. I have a sister who is the president of an advertising agency. I have another sister who sings. I am the
simple. But after reading this book, I realized that it is okay to be ordinary. We cannot all be center stage. It’s common for those of us in the back to keep everything together. ‘”

The main character, Jewel, was loosely based on my mother, who was a people connoisseur. In addition to the legacy of love she left for her children, she left behind a homemade waffle batter recipe that I understand has traveled to Zaire, Japan, Thailand, and Paris through my sister, who currently lives in Japan. This was another idea gained during this train journey.

After our deaths, we live in many ways.

In retrospect, my train journey and the time it gave me to reflect helped me understand why the last lumberjack had cut more wood. Because it was during a time when I had to move slowly that I found my answers. Yes, I can continue working for now and write. Usually it is during my work, my writing downtime, that my material arrives.

Because I had slowed down, I also discovered something else that, until now, had eluded me. And it is that, from the depths of the blackest pain I had ever experienced, I found the strength to recreate a facsimile of my beloved, my mother, in my writing. Because it was through his death that I learned that love does not die. Keep going. And it’s the only thing that matters in this life.