At age sixty-five, I wrote my first essay. It was about riding a roller coaster as a terrified little girl sitting next to my mother. It was 2015 in Jennifer Lauck’s Blackbird Studio for Writers where a dozen older and retired newbie writers assembled to learn the craft of writing. I hadn’t thought about my goals but simply wrote what came to mind and my first ride on a Kennywood roller coaster had stayed with me all my life. Jennifer Lauck asked, “Cathryn, is this really what you want to write about?” When I explained, she looked aside and said, “Okay. If that’s what you want to do.”
At the end of my second writing class Jennifer described her memoir, Blackbird, about her life as an adopted child. She exclaimed over the practice of forcing unwed mothers to relinquish their children in the nineteen sixties before legal birth control pills and pre-Roe v Wade. The class listened intently.
Jennifer said, “Imagine having your newborn ripped from your arms, never to be seen again. Think of the trauma, the body’s memory, the hormonal shifts that occur, and what it means to have the physical and emotional bond broken between a mother and child.”
I swallowed hard while holding tight to my unraveling emotions as she continued describing the nature of conflict in good story telling.
The class ended. I waited until the room emptied then sat down with Jennifer, burst into tears, revealing that I had given up a child. She sat back and said, “Cathryn, this is what you must write. This story. This is where your pain lies.” My heart raced as if a brick wall was about to fall on me. “No,” I said still weeping. “There’s no way I can write about it.” I’d kept my baby’s birth a secret for decades. I was about to go down a rabbit hole that I never saw coming.
Back home, my shoulders tensed while I tapped computer keys, telling what I’d kept hidden all my life. Sentences filled pages as I tumbled backward into nineteen sixty-eight when I was eighteen. One memory led to another to another to another. There were many days when I forgot where I was, what time it was, or that I’d missed a meal. At first, I wrote a series of events; this happened, then this happened, then this happened. With Jennifer’s help, I learned to write scenes, bring the reader in by painting a picture (like in the movies) and how to help the reader feel what I felt, how to create a focus, an arc, scenes, tension.
During the years of development, I whined to my classmates that my writing was lousy, no one will care, it’s embarrassing, it’s all about me. I felt like an imposter. But with their steady encouragement and praise I kept working. Years of classes and workshops, critique group meetings and conference attendances, I kept writing until I had a polished product and signed a contract with my publisher. More editing, then cover design for I Need To Tell You. I’ve learned far more than I expected on that first day in Jennifer’s class. It’s been a profoundly satisfying, healing, and energizing experience.
Cathryn Vogeley is a retired nurse specialist who cared for hundreds of patients with chronic wounds. Her mission is, and has always been, healing. Cathryn is a keen observer with a sensitivity toward the injustice, the ridiculousness, and the beauty of life. Her urge to write was born from a desire to grow, and as Flannery O'Connor said, "I write to discover what I know." Cathryn makes her home in the Pacific Northwest where she lives with her husband and three terriers.