We were on an archaeological dig in the Andean Highlands of Peru and had gotten back from the field for the day; the children from the village were waiting for us. I didn’t speak Spanish, but one of the field school directors had brought out some pencils and a few sheets of paper for the kids to draw on; I saw my in. I went outside and sat down by them, drawing 20 dots on a piece of paper and showing them how to take turns connecting the dots to make them into squares.
One boy drew a picture on his piece of paper and gave me a word. “Pino,” he said, and pointed to his sketch. I didn’t get it at first. “Pino,” he said again, then pointed to the trees. “Ah!” I said. “Pino.” He smiled and nodded. “Pine,” I said, “en Inglés,” and he said, “Pine.” Then, a drawing of el sol, la montaña, una mariposa. The sun, the mountain, a butterfly. We said each others’ words out loud and smiled.
I’d been using a pen I’d brought from home. It said “Plainwell Middle School” on the side, one a company had accidentally sent to me instead of to Michigan. One of the other children tapped me on the shoulder and asked if her friend could have it. I looked at him, smiled and handed it over. He looked like Christmas, and I understood.
Now, there’s a pen with the words “Plainwell Middle School” on it in the Andean Highlands of Peru, and there’s a journal with pages full of sketches and dots and names in it in Southeast Missouri. We give what we have, and it changes people.
In this issue, we celebrate what it is to give. We meet the founders of three organizations in our community — Shut Up & Write, It Takes a Village, and Runnin’ Wild Trail Running Club — and find out why they want to give their time to these causes. We hear from sisters about what they teach each other. And we find out how one writer learned to love her middle-aged body. We hope these stories help you to give what you have to those around you, and to extend this same love and grace to yourself, too.
“One of the things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now,” Annie Dillard writes in “The Writing Life.” It’s a sentiment that’s been echoing in my mind lately.
“The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now,” she continues. “Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep for yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
I love the ways these thoughts encourage me when I write, and I love the ways they also apply to life. We hold on to what we have or know, and we somehow have it or know it less. We keep, and therefore, we do not receive, because there is no space for exchange, no place for new. We are made to help each other become. We give well, and we learn how to also receive well; we transform, and we are somehow also transformed. Trees take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, and it enables them to live. Pino.
This season and beyond, may we give freely and abundantly and generously and wildly what we have. May we let it belong to all of us. And may we not confuse extravagance with significance; some of the most meaningful gifts can be as simple as a sketch or a word.
Which is to say, of course, our self.
Joy, Mia
