Photo by Ivan Prole

Long before I heard Joseph Campbell exhorting all of us to find our lifelong happiness by following our bliss, I already knew that. I also knew what my bliss would be and that it would come as soon as I had time to write—full-time, all day, for the rest of my life. I didn’t know yet which genre I would choose to say all that was in me yearning to be expressed, and I couldn’t imagine yet what I would write about, but I guessed, because my nature was so inclined, that my writing would be serious, important—you know: something of value. But never mind the imponderables. What I did know with absolute certainty was that one day—when I had finished school, earned a degree (in Russian literature, maybe), and had the time and the privacy and my subject matter all lined up—I would be the most blissful writer of them all.

I was seven years old when my instinct to write gave birth. I had just seen one of those deeply patriotic World War II movies, the kind that ripped your heart out and inspired everyone in the theater audience to commit themselves to doing something at least as “heroic” as those who were fighting and dying for us. They were beautiful young men when the movie began; by movie’s end, as the music soared, sonorous and uplifting, they were (Oh pleeeez God, no!) bloodied, no longer beautiful, dead forever. My feelings were so huge and heavy I could think of nothing else but to run home, find paper and pencil, and write my pain away. Yet, however desperate I felt to write all of that sadness out of my system, I was at a total loss to begin. There were no words in me yet to match the sense and depth of my feelings—and right there, of course, was merely the first of many lessons I learned about becoming a writer. One needed a “vocabulary” to express one’s feelings, and I had miles and years to go before I could pair my emotions with some well-developed thought and an ounce or two of wisdom.

So, from seven to sixty-seven I lived my largely quotidian life: three children, a couple of husbands, a long career having nothing to do with Russian literature, and a lot of serious ups and downs, all of which I journaled when times got bad enough and I needed to make sense of my life (and practice my prose). Then, on the day I turned sixty-seven I had a piece of my favorite cake (chocolate, one candle only) and, mid-chew, a stunning revelation: The kids were grown and gone, of course; my recently departed mother had taken with her the heavy weight of my long-suffering commitment to her well-being; and, with a cheerful willingness to live frugally, I had thrown my cautious ways to the winds and retired from nearly a lifetime of working in the world—writing thousands of assorted corporate pages, but nothing I would ever call meaningful. So now I was free! For the first time ever, all things were aligned to roll out my writing life and its attendant, long overdue state of bliss. I had everything I needed: passion, privacy, enough money to get by, and endless time (well, not all that endless) to live for better or worse a life I could finally call my own. Yes!

And off I went, relocating from a big city to a small town by the sea in which to hibernate and write undisturbed by big-city helicopters and neighbors who fight only at bedtime. I celebrated my retirement by doing nothing that wasn’t fun for the first time in years and “sleeping in” mornings whenever the spirit moved me. I socialized in the coffee shops, unplugged the telly, and read all the way through two tall stacks of books on either side of my bed, instead. Finally, I explored God’s gorgeous green acres outside my door and a beautiful blue ocean a mere stone’s throw away and bounded only by the sky’s horizon. Then I was ready to write: the story of a lifetime, I imagined—illuminated, edifying, informed by experience, strength, wisdom, and hope. Something like that—inspiring. I hunkered down to wait . . .
and wait . . . and wait.

The next time I looked at my watch I was seventy years old. Are you suspecting it might be a little late now for me to start a second life? Are you wondering yet if this story is going to have a happy ending? Of course you are! So was I, especially because so much time was chewing up the days while I, pen poised, remained stuck on a blank page, totally unmoved to write the serious words in my heart that, by example, might give hope to those who needed it. I don’t understand this, I journaled in prose. I have acquired a “vocabulary” of life experiences that by now will stand alongside the best of them—and furnish enough meaningful material to last a lifetime—or so I thought. And while it is heaven not having to keep corporate hours anymore, it feels terribly wrong not to be writing all that “meaningful material” into books. What happened, Universe? Was that long-lived writer’s dream of mine merely a childhood fluke—a young child’s intuition too fragile to take root? And what about now—am I meant to toss my dream in the let-go-and-forget-it bin?
In the month following my seventy-first birthday, when—you won’t be surprised—I had laid all thoughts of writing aside, celebrating low-key and not-so-much that year, a friend stayed overnight with me on her way elsewhere the following morning. Before she left . . .

“Take as long as you like and go as deep as you can,” she said as she handed me a sheaf of hand-written questions titled The Harvesting Wisdom Interview. It was a research project for a second master’s degree and she was asking some of her “older and wiser” friends to write our responses. “Okay,” I said, “but don’t count on too much wisdom from me, please. And [glancing at the questions as I spoke] it looks like I’ll need a month or two to finish them—is that soon enough for you?” (Raise your hands, readers, if you know where this is going yet.) The questions were interesting and unusual, even compelling, I thought at the time, and though I finished with my responses by the date promised, I would have liked more time. Five years from the day I sent them to her, she had been celebrating her master’s degree for at least a couple of years, and I—having returned to those very compelling questions—digging deeper this time, writing at much greater length—had completed the last draft of a manuscript for a book: Searching for Soul. Another writer helped me find a publisher who agreed—first, to read the manuscript (calling me frequently to say he liked it); and second—before a month had passed—to publish my book. You want to talk about bliss? At this point, I was dizzy with bliss!
If I have told this story well, you already know that I was not—nor will you ever be—too old to follow my intuitive destiny—unless maybe you’re my age and the only bliss that attracts you is planting a flag on the highest peak of the Himalayas and even then I wouldn’t bet against you! Writing my book was the hardest work I have ever done. Nevertheless—and though I was often discouraged at the end of a day when none of my words behaved themselves—I was steadied and sustained throughout my great, long effort with a quality of satisfaction that perfectly fitted the seriousness of my purpose. After all, how many people have an opportunity to give back in words all that one has learned from reading the words of others? I loved what I was writing! I loved my reasons for writing it! I loved the world and everyone in it!

I can hear you now: surprised at my luck and wishing me well, no doubt—but to wait so many years for a shot at one’s bliss? I questioned that, too, of course, but not for long because the answer was so simple. I could not have written my book—nor would it have been of much value, given the kind of book it is—unless I had lived long enough to write my story honestly and authentically from real-life experience. Once I started to write, it didn’t take long to realize that in answering my friend’s questions in so much depth, I was writing an intimate discourse on self-discovery, a re-creation of an inner journey whose full meaning and substance would be revealed to me only when my work with them was completed. I have no trouble believing that the book—after all my wishing and wondering and wanting—was my destiny, was meant to be, is what became the greater part of what gave my life its meaning.

And so it was that in exchange for my considerable time and effort, I am able now to enjoy a rare and valuable gift: my life—fully deciphered, whole, and comprehensible in all of its layers. Probing my past, plumbing my depths, I had set about re-living the peaks and valleys of my story and found out at the end of every chapter that it was not just my story—but everyone’s story. By diving as deep as I could go into the heart of my own particular darkness, I found again and again the essential meaning and purpose of life, itself. We are unique, so our stories will always be different on the transparent surface of life, yet the deeper I probed—beyond the “particular” to the level of soul—the more I was certain we are all one at our core. Were you to “explore” your own story, your efforts would slowly and quietly change your perceptions of yourself, and perhaps more than yourself. If you are looking for your bliss—and you’re not as old as I am—you might try climbing the Himalayas. But if you’re a writer (with a serious bent) you might “take as long as you like and go as deep as you can” and I would bet you at least this much: The day will come when you know yourself more completely than you ever thought possible, and on that day you will hold your soul—like a precious jewel—in the palm of your hand. That would be bliss.

The book: Searching for Soul
by Bobbe Tyler
November 28, 2009
from 1 to 3:00 p.m.
The Painted Lily Gallery — East Village
2026 Main Street, Cambria
(805) 927-5747