Please Yourself

I was at a Christmas Eve gathering at the home of a couple of my dearest friends. There was joy and celebration. Good food. Twinkling lights. Candles. People smiling and being kind to each other, all dressed up in their party clothes.

When I was getting ready to leave, a woman approached me. Her name was Barbara and she had blonde hair, beautiful skin and kind eyes. “I heard somone call you Andrea,” she said. ”Are you Andrea Cagan?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s me.”

Barbara caught her breath for a moment and she began to explain what my weekly blog has meant to her over several years. She praised my writing, my honesty and my vulnerability. I was floored by her appreciation. It was deeply satisfying to know that this weekly blog I write (I’ve done over 350 of them) could mean so much to someone I was meeting for the first time.

When I post my blog on Substack and Facebook, I have no idea who will read it and who will be touched by it. It feels like I’m writing into the wind sometimes with an unknown landing site. But I keep on doing it. I search for something in my life that has happened that week and as I write about it, it feels like I’m having a discussion with another person. Meeting somone who said it helped her in her daily life was a gift to me. It gave my work meaning and it felt like it was worth the effort. It reminded me that when you’re finished writing something, you push it out of the nest and you have no idea where it will land.

In this phase of my life, writing means something different than it used to. During the 1980s, I went on multiple trips to the Philippines to research the famed faith healers. After my third trip, I realized that I had witnessed s something that very few people knew about and I decided to write a book. As I wrote, I imagined getting a book deal, I wanted it, and finally, after three long years of submissions and countless rejections, my dream came true. Simon and Schuster bought my book and their marketing department set up a plan for me. The book did very well.

Times have changed. Today, book deals are all about social media. Instead of putting together a plan, the publisher wants to know how you intend to market your book. How many followers do you have? How many platforms do you use?

I’m not willing to do all that work but I am willing to write every day and post a weekly blog, just for the sake of doing it. When I begin, sometimes I know exactly what I want to write about and I get started. But usually I have no idea what will show up on the page and it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I do two or three beginnings and finally settle on something that’s meaningful to me. If it helps someone else, so much the better.

There was a time when I didn’t write unless I had an end game in mind. That’s understandable. Most artists have a desire to get our work out and get feedback. Positive, we hope. But it’s important not to be limited. A woman I know has published a number of mysteries. They have done well, she has new ideas ideas for plots, but recently, her longtime editor retired. She hadn’t found a new editor and she was distraught. “I miss writing,” she said. “I feel lost.”

“Why don’t you write about how you’re feeling?” I suggested. “It’ll give you something to do while you look for another rep. It’ll make you feel better.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I can’t do that. I can only write when I have a book deal.”

Getting your work out is one reason to write but there are other reasons. French diarist, Anais Nin said, “We write to taste life in the moment and in retrospection.” I’ve come to accept the fact that my work may only get read by friends. Still, I write because it helps me stay present with myself. It helps me express my joy and accomplishments and my sadness and failures. The ultimate reward is in the doing. That’s the only part of this that I have control over.

The adage, “Writers write,” has great meaning for me. It’s the same with “Painters paint. Dancers dance. Composers compose.” There’s nothing to wait for. I simply feel better when I write and worse when I don’t. It helps me face the day and it gives my life purpose. Isn’t pleasing myself a worthy enough reason? As someone who lives alone, I’ve learned to appreciate beauty, even when there’s no one to share it with. You may choose to live alone like I do or you may have lost someone. Whatever the reason, learning to do something by yourself because it feels good is a worthy goal.

If you think you should be writing, don’t bother. Nothing good will come of it. However, if you want to write, there is a lot to gain. You don’t have to figure out where it’s going or who will see it. It has its own trajectory so don’t interfere. I see each project with a set of wings and I trust it to fly where it wants to go.

As I read back over these pages, I see that I’ve reached a place where satisfying myself is more important than satisfying someone else. It’s a freeing feeling. There are no expectations or criticisms involved. It’s just me being me. Its about keeping my own counsel. It’s about turning to myself for soothing. It’s about knowing that I always deserve it.

Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” said, “If you’re writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you’re writing for. Yourself.”