I read the announcement
in the newspaper and took particular interest in the location -- the fire
station close to my house. Perfect. Motivated partly by proximity, I decided to
go. When Saturday morning came, I headed to the station about 15 minutes from my
house.
I drove down country roads through lovely scenery, sharing the road with
only a few other cars, if any. I pulled into the gravel driveway and went in to
find a small group of friendly writers at a table. I sat down; introductions were
made; they seemed to know each other; they welcomed me. We talked about our writing passion. We shared past writing experiences and our expectations of
the club. This is heaven, I thought. I left inspired and grateful.
On at least
a couple more Saturdays in the following months, I did the same and met a few more
people. Then the meeting place changed. The room in the fire station, someone
said, did not meet certain criteria. And we want to grow, it was explained; we
want to be bigger and better – an understandable and worthwhile goal for any ambitious
organization. More announcements were sent out and some people worked hard to
find a snazzier place to meet, which turned out to be an upstairs room in a
fancy-smancy grocery store the size of a city block.
On the next scheduled
date, I headed out again, only this time instead of turning right, I turned
left. And instead of heading down a two-lane road with lush scenery on either
side, I fought for my position on a crowded interstate for 30 miles then manipulated
another jaunt of stoplights and six-lane streets. Finally, I turned into the
massive parking lot and squeezed into a space, hoping I could find my car when
I came back.
I went in the store, passing Starbucks and customer service, and
found the winding stairwell hidden in the corner. Up I went to a large room
with wall-to-wall gray steel and more people than before accompanied by the noisy hum of an air system/handler/blower/thingy somewhere in the rafters. The people were still welcoming and friendly but the
venue was no longer quaint. The setting had lost its charm.
So now, with a certain level of
disappointment, I contemplate my future with the writers club. Shall I roll
down the interstate to the asphalt jungle and entertain my passion or miss out
completely? It’s sort of like picking out a restaurant for Friday night dinner and having to choose
between the one with excellent food and the one with the most enticing ambiance. Will it be candlelight or compliments to the
chef?
I am probably alone in my curious stance, which is somewhere between the buzz
of town and the serenity of close to home. The only reason I write my thoughts here is because,
well, I’m a writer. In
the words of a familiar hymn, this is my story; this is my song.
Sometimes when I travel past the fire station, I long for the good ‘ol days, when for
a short time I hung out with other writers on Saturday mornings, in a charming
place far from the maddening crowd. In this ever-changing world of so-called progress, nothing seems to stay the
same, but once in a while I wish it would.
#VirginiaWritersClub