Drawing on quiet moments of insight during life's turning points

The moments on which my life has turned were rarely dramatic but usually quiet moments of insight.

The first time I was offered a "promotion" to editor I knew I was at a fork in the road. Editor meant more money, more status, eventually far more power, but my answer was easy: Thanks, but I am a writer."

I met Minnie Mae the day before Valentine's Day in 1951, and I went to her apartment door and knocked. She was surprised, and I handed her a spice rack since she had talked about cooking the night before.

She was angry. I was "presumptuous." I asked if she would allow me to take her out to dinner. "No." Then she opened the door wider. "I'll cook." As I stepped across the threshold, I knew my life had changed.

When I graduated from the University of New Hampshire, I was asked to stay on and teach. I was insulted. I was a writer, not a teacher.

Fifteen years later, I answered the phone and was asked if I would consider returning to the University of New Hampshire to teach. No hesitation. "When do I start?" I was a freelance magazine writer with three children, but it still might take 11 months to survive rejections and make a sale, another six months to be paid.

When I retired from the university 20 years ago, I continued to write this column, publish books and articles, consult, speak, and run workshops on writing and teaching. Gradually because of travel and age in that order, I spoke less -- a relief to me and my potential audiences -- consulted less, and ran fewer workshops, but I continued to write.

But then came one of those quiet turning points recently. I turned from my computer and found myself drawing, in bright, angry colors an unexpected ocean wave.

Lost to the world, free of book proposals and deadlines, I felt a contentment I had not experienced since before my war, college, and a long career as a professional writer. I was as happy as I had been as a child making a picture of a world that did not exist until my oil pastels drew it out of the paper. When I woke the next morning, I knew I would continue to write this column as long as it will be published. It is a weekly surprise that always comes easily and allows me to practice my craft within the limits necessary for creativity.

Now I'm an artist who writes, a teenager who lives in an imaginary world and writes to explore the worlds to which his oil pastels have taken him. I've come home.