Writing begins when you compose the first sentence. Then comes the second sentence. Usually, after the third sentence you begin to have something to say. 

I recently left my job under bewildering circumstances. A few days before my departure, I found a note and a box on my desk. A colleague and friend had gifted me the pen I am writing with now.

Interesting thing about writing – the way pushing words from your brain, down your arm, through your hand, into your pen, and onto paper gets you to the heart of your thinking. This pen is made from a piece of scrap wood gathered from the woodshop classroom of the school where I was the principal until a week ago. 

My colleague and friend is a music teacher who crafts wooden pens as a hobby. The pens are beautiful. This one has a shape that fits perfectly in my hand with just the right balance to make writing effortless. The wood is dark with a rich black swirling grain, capped at either end by Celtic inspired metal finishings. The ballpoint is smooth and leaves just the right amount of ink on the page. The end is capped by green glass that captures and reflects the light.  

Writing reveals the connecting patterns that form the fabric of our histories: helping us to see our circumstances clearly enough to choose roads yet taken, to blaze our own way, to step away from the safety of following. 

I graduated from the high school where I served as a principal for the last four years. The graduation ceremony I presided over one month and four days ago fell on the fortieth anniversary of my own graduation from the school. A few of my friends’ children were among the graduates who walked across the stage and shook my hand. I held my last faculty meeting outside in the school courtyard from the spot where I used to sit as a student. Strange how the pieces of your life find each other when framed by reflection.

This morning marks a week from the day I walked out of my corner Principal Office for the last time – my favorite surfboard under my arm. As a student at the high school, I surfed before first period. Displaying the deep green board on the wall of my office was my way of encouraging everyone to think of our school as our home away from home. Now I sit in the quiet of this blue-green summer morning, unrushed, enjoying a second cup of coffee on my deck instead of balancing it on the drive to school. I am trying to  imagine the next chapter of my journey. A chapter so far without routine, without duties, and without the haunting weight of looming dilemmas. 

Like this pen made from scrap wood and transformed by the hands of my artist friend, I will need to refashion myself. An exciting and frightening prospect. Making pens is my friend’s hobby – work he loves to do. Can I fashion a new life out of something I love to do? 

What I have now that I have not enjoyed since the summer I was twelve is empty time. I am blessed. I married the love of my life. My twins are my favorite people. I live in a place where the light and the water are like no other. I have close friends I trust without reservation. My parents are healthy and live in the next town over. My brother and sister enjoy loving families of their own. Strong roots for branching out.

Maybe the answer to my new looming question (Now What?) is simple: Write. No sense in worrying about the unknowable future. Replaying the past is exhausting. Maybe the thing to do is right in front of me: the pen, the open time, my hobby: essay writing. 

I have always dreamed of being a writer. I think I will lean into that, pick up my gifted pen each morning, trust in the art, and see where my words take me.