My First Day as a Writer

Today is the first day of my new life.

Several months ago I made the decision to decline a well-paying, great job I didn’t think I’d enjoy. Through the process of that job decision, I realized what I really want to do is pursue writing for a while.

I decided that at some point soon, I’d reduce my hours at my current job as a stream scientist, or I’d quit altogether and take several months to try being a writer. I knew this would cut into my savings, but I decided it was worth the risk now, while I’m still young and childless.

Writing books is a lifelong dream. Life dreams are worth pursuing sooner rather than later.

And now the day has finally arrived! I’ve decided to work only ten hours a week at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and I worked all ten of them yesterday. I’m now sitting in my pjs at the dining room table, sipping tea, looking out at the lake, and happily writing this blog entry.

Aside from my ten-hour DNR weeks, my new life will be arranged as follows. I’ll spend several hours a week on my politics blog and Reach Out Wisconsin, continuing to foster political dialogue and write about it. Occasionally I’ll write here too, in this blog about my writing. And I’ll spend 20-25 hours a week on my main project: writing a memoir about Ron’s and my experiences in Peace Corps Tanzania.

I’ve also quit one of my two projects at the DNR, wanting to focus on the one dearest to my heart: creating a field guide to Wisconsin streams. Ron and I worked on this project for eight months in 2009-10, but we had to put it down unexpectedly for a more urgent watershed study. Now that study is almost complete. I’ve left it in the hands of Ron and one other person and persuaded DNR to let me finish up the field guide project.

So even at the DNR, I’m working on a book! My role there is more editor than author, but it’s still exciting. The book will be 350 pages and will feature descriptions of the different fishes, bugs, plants, frogs, turtles, crayfishes, and mussels that are found in Wisconsin streams. The draft we’ve got is beautiful and mostly just needs finishing touches, so it should be done in the spring. I can’t wait to see this book in people’s hands and to use it myself!

I intend to make the most of this big transition. This past year, working full time and becoming increasingly busy as Reach Out Wisconsin grew, I’ve slipped into workaholic mode.

Hard work and big projects run in both sides of my family—part of me is enthusiastically obsessed with Reach Out and enjoying the challenge. But it also takes its toll. Often, the first thing I do in the morning is flip open the laptop to check email. I sometimes stay up late blogging; I forget to eat or exercise.

I want to live a more balanced life, with work in the daytime and play in the evening. I want “family time” with Ron and our friends, and “me time” to reflect and replenish.

As such a goal-oriented person, this type of balance doesn’t come easily to me… But I’m going to give it my best shot. Reducing my hours at work means I’ll finally be doing what I want to do in the daytime, so I won’t have to work on my personal projects on weekends and evenings.

And since I’ll be writing about Peace Corps, I hope to bring my old Peace Corps mentality into my American life. Writing this memoir will be the perfect chance to do that. I’ll be living here, but reliving the two years I spent in rural Tanzania.

Life was so different there. It’s hard to imagine now, but I didn’t wear a watch for two years. Like the villagers around me, I walked and talked slowly. I spent many long hours sipping tea with friends. Ron’s village was “only” an hour’s walk away, which I was happy to do a few times a week—spare hours were abundant in Peace Corps.

When we returned home, Ron and I were distressed by the frantic pace of American life and the relative lack of community here. In African villages, everyone has time to greet each other and chat along the roadside. I miss that so much.

Not all of Peace Corps was idyllic. I struggled with overwhelming loneliness on a daily basis, missing my family and missing being in my own culture. Even though there are things I dislike about America, I slowly came to understand that ultimately, I would always be an outsider in my village, always destined to be stared at by everyone and laughed at by little kids. That’s why I decided to return home for good when Peace Corps was over.

But…

If I could bring that slowness, that expansive sense of time, into my life here, it would be wonderful. If I could be someone who always has time for friends, for Ron, for family; if I could walk more and drive less; if I could get away from the computer and my to-do list and just gaze out at the lake in the evenings…

Ah, that would be worth learning.