by Lisa Rivero
Photo by Sura Nualpradid
The older I get, the more I believe in late bloomers.
Last weekend my husband and I had supper with a couple of college students. The two of them were talking about someone who had already had a book published at their age. They shook their heads and lamented their comparative late starts, feeling behind the curve at age twenty.
I could only smile.
One of the marvelous aspects of being a writer, one that I never really appreciated until recently, is how little precocity plays a role and how much we have to look forward to with time. We writers are not like mathematicians or musicians, who must train hard and fast during the difficult years of puberty if they are ever going to make a real mark in the world. That’s not to say that young writers are not capable of giving us marvelous works of literature. As Malcolm Gladwell reminds us, T. S. Eliot wrote “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” when he was only twenty-three. But Gladwell also shows that even poetry, once thought to be a young man’s and woman’s genre, is anything but. Nearly half of the anthologized poems of Wallace Stevens, for example, were written after Stevens’ fiftieth birthday.
Such thoughts make themselves at home in my mind these days for a couple of reasons. First, our only child is now in college. No longer do I have the challenge of attention divided between trying to be a good parent and wanting to be a prolific and respected writer (my attention is still divided, but for different reasons). When our son was young, I was never good at compartmentalizing my life or making efficient use of naptime or afternoons when he was in activities. A good friend of mine would tell me that when her son, then a toddler, took a nap, she ran-not-walked to her desk and pounded out as many words as she could before he woke up. I would like to say I did the same. I usually fell asleep myself.
The second reason I am embracing my late bloomer is that, just this week, I received notice of the acceptance of my first short story in an online literary journal. My husband immediately took me out to dinner to celebrate. He knows how much this means to me.
I can’t say that I have a wealth of life experiences on which to draw or that I’m going to write a best-seller anytime soon. But somehow, without planning to, I have managed to collect a variety of writing “lives” that were simply not possible twenty or even ten years ago, from my beginning as a journalism major (which morphed into an English major and math minor) to writing cookbook reviews and food columns, education articles and parenting books, and, more recently, fiction. Over time, I’ve gotten better at navigating genres and forms and audiences. I feel more able now than ever to hear and recognize my own thoughts and words. I can, when I remember to, take the long view and bring myself back to the moment and what matters. And every day I get a little better at seeing—and being—myself as I am. The result is that I treat my writing with more compassion, more tolerance, and more encouragement.
This spring I will turn 48, and, in terms of both writing and life, I feel as though I’m just getting started. It’s a wonderful feeling. I wouldn’t expect my college students to understand, but I wouldn’t want to be twenty again for anything in the world.
Lisa Rivero grew up in rural South Dakota and now lives, writes, teaches, and indexes books in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her online home is http://lisarivero.com.
This is positively heartening to read. I am expecting my first child in August and already I am panicked over how to be an aspiring mother and writer.
Isn’t this a fantastic post? I think I need to read it weekly. Daily! And it can be done with patience. (I’m still learning this) Hats off to you!
Jillian, you are exactly the kind of reader I hoped to reach with this piece! You have so much time. That’s not to say it’s not important to keep writing along the way, but it really can be in snatches rather than tomes, and the experience you will gain from motherhood is invaluable to writers. Thanks so much for your thoughts, and congratulations!
Yay for late bloomers! I doubt I would have survived as a writer at twenty. I didn’t have enough learning in me, of life or the craft. What a great post, Lisa, and congrats on the acceptance of your short story. I can’t wait to read it!
Christi, I agree completely about how much I had to learn at 20 (and now, for that matter). It’s a good thing. Life would be very dull, otherwise.
I’ll be sure to post a link to the short story (thanks!). It will be in the next issue of the Adirondack Review.
Lovely Post, Lisa. I’m turning 40 this year myself, and just this week I’ve been saying to my husband that when I look back at photos of me in my 20s, I have a hard time even relating to the person I see there. Life definitely has a way of changing and maturing a person. I’m more in the blog writing stage of my “writing career” (honestly, I don’t even self-identify as a writer – that’s my husband’s gig), but really your comments about late blooming are applicable to our lives as a whole. With each year that passes, I become more clear about who I am and what I care about. I can only be who I am because I’m almost 40. It’s a gift.
Gwyn, thank you. I know just what you mean about trying to relate to my younger self. My mother told me once that her life really began at 40, and I only now understand what she meant.
Oh, Lisa, I so agree with what you say … and for many year’s good reason.
I know I haven’t reached my peak, but I’m working toward it for all I’m worth. I have the luxury of pure me time now.
I wish you all the best as you celebrate your late blooming. Congratulations on the publication, and I know there will be many more.
Linda: “working toward it for all I’m worth.” I love that! Only now (very recently, in fact) am I realizing that this really is my life, and I’m the only one who can shape it in any way. Thank you for the supportive words.
Good, good on you, Lisa! Where ever I look Online I seem to come across your name these days. So glad to read your inspirational words, and then the comments, which prove that your thoughts strike cords, not just with writers of your own age, but younger and older. Keep on keeping on! I’ve been writing for decades, and only last year tried my hand at fiction, indeed something I couldn’t do before. I as well, first had to learn that I can get across in writing, what I feel and mean to say.
Judith, thank you! I love finding other writers who keep adding new forms and genres. I greatly admire young writers who can get across their experiences and emotions through fiction, but, like you, for some reason I needed to wait until now.
Oh, yes. Three cheers for us late bloomers.
Susan, ole [imagine accent mark] to all of us!
And here is the story!
http://www.theadirondackreview.com/Spring2012.html
For an added treat I was able to meet the editor at AWP.
Oh, Lisa, I just read the story. That will stay with me all day.