Seeing Through a Glass Darkly-- Why Not--Meg Cabot did and so did Greg Mortenson

"For now we see through a glass, darkly." I Corinthians 13:12

I love this imagine and verse from Corinthians in the Bible. And to me it is so true. If we could see through a glass in good light, we'd have an almost perfect picture, but to see through a glass in dark light, or with limited light, well it’s a lot of guess work. This week I've been reminded of how true that is, with my writing, through hearing other writer's stories, and with my own life.

I pride myself on having intuition. Last week my nephew was here visiting me. We were on the subway heading from Queens to Manhattan on one of our crazy adventures. He's twenty, I'm fifty-one, but to hear us talking you'd think we were two teenage boys, maybe 14. We have fun together. For example on one long subway ride when we could not sit next to each other but had to sit across from each other, we talked in sign language. At the beginning of our subway ride, we both knew the signed alphabet. I knew a few more signs from a course I took long ago. But by the end of our hour plus subway ride, I had not only taught my nephew almost every sign I knew but we had made up several of our own, finger spelling them, then showing the sign, then laughing at our brilliance and were actually communicating silently, with a bit of skill and having a lot of fun. So we are silly and creative.

But the next day on our planned trip to Manhattan, we were sitting next to each other and out of the blue I started talking about my nephew's sister, my niece and I began crying. I could not stop crying. I really didn't know why. I said "I just miss her," because it was getting uncomfortable, and I didn't know what else to do to explain my tears. But I knew in my heart it was more. I just didn't know what it was. Later I talked to her on the phone and discovered that she was very sad. Ironically we had both been crying at the same exact time. So my intuition told me something was wrong, but did it tell me what was the matter? No clue at all---hence the "through a glass darkly."

Now this morning I was on the dread-mill as I like to call that machine in our gym that lets you pretend to walk or jog and burn of calories indoors because it's 90 and 90% humidity outside and sane people do not exercise outside in that weather. Okay I'm a wimp. I admit it. Welcome to the East coast summers!

But any-who, I was listening to a wonderful pod-series I subscribe to (free) by Barnes and Noble where they interview authors. Today I listened to Meg Cabot and Greg Mortenson. Not only did both authors have different goals than they eventually accomplished (seeing through a glass darkly) when they first started out in pursuit of their dreams, but they had to keep on despite road blocks at every turn. And it was the combination of these two things--the unclear vision and the roadblocks in their way--that gave me hope this morning and made me determined to hold tight to my dreams, even if they aren't that very well defined and the glimmer is dim.

Meg Cabot wanted to write. She wanted to write a story about a 30 year old girl whose mom started dating one of her (the daughter's) old school teacher's. Meg Cabot wrote the story and let her friends read the book.

Feedback?

It's good but who cares about a 30 year old woman being upset at her mom for who she's dating? Change the age.

So Meg Cabot, whose dream had been to write about a 30 year old character, changed the character in her story from age 30 to age 14. And even then the Princess Diaries, according to Ms. Cabot was seen by every editor in NYC before it was finally sold=perseverance and seeing through a glass darkly.

The second interview I listened to was with Greg Mortenson. He was a climber, and was hiking to the top of K2 in tribute to his sister who had recently died. He wanted to place her ring on top of the mountain. That never happened. Instead he ended up turning around before he reached the summit, ill and half dead, and was cared for in a remote village by the local people. While recuperating he observed that the only teaching going on in this village was outside with sand and sticks. He changed his goal from climbing K2 in tribute to his sister to building a school in this remote village in her memory. Several years later, tons of fund raising, and many difficult hurdles and he had not only built a bridge for the small town but the first of many schools he has built in this remote area of the world. So his tribute to his sister was never completed as he first envisioned it, but instead became a much grander tribute in the end, because of the detours and trials he suffered along the way to his first goal--in other words his vision for his sister was seen through a glass darkly.

I feel like that is so much of life. I went to Vermont College and earned an MFA so I could learn how to write a specific novel, a novel that I am still working on. In the meantime, while I was trying to figure out this novel (which is making progress and gaining hope every day) I wrote another novel--Converting Kate, which wasn't in the plan at all.

I am coming to believe that diversions, unforeseen bends in the roads, detours, or seeing through a glass darkly may be the best things about life. Instead of a ring on top of K2 thousands of remote villages now have schools. Instead of another book about a 30something female, millions of teenage girls including my own daughter have enjoyed the Princess Diaries. And I have a book published, by accident, while I was on the road to trying to figure out book one, I wrote book two.

Isn't life strange?