I never stopped writing or making art, but I did leave the writer’s den. I thought I had only closed the door for a while. Instead, in my mid-40s, I ran off to college to rediscover the pleasure of comparing, contrasting, and thinking critically about other people’s work. I also tutored, mentored, and kept transcribing everyone else’s words for my day job.
The last child emptied out of the nest.
I flew the coop, and left the country a handful of times, which is not enough by the way, as no "travel with your best friend" bucket list is ever complete.
Three of the grandchildren grew into adults, and two married. (What!?)
Two younger ones appeared in the lower ranks.
I sat last moments with loved ones.
Two rescue dogs made it to seventeen and eighteen.
Then I retired. My body wasn’t tired, but my brain was. My thoughts felt cloudy, and everything I had postponed or tucked away suddenly needed attention. There were physical and mental closets to empty. That first year felt like freshman year of college, except I still couldn’t see clearly enough to choose a major.
I no longer believe creativity is proven through productivity. A violinist who has not played in six months is still a violinist. A poet who spends three years crafting a poem is still a poet. An artist whose work lives in notebooks, conversations, art fairs, or consignment shops is still an artist.
There is a strange cultural pressure to justify ourselves with output.
"What have you published lately?"
Sometimes the answer is:
"I rescued a dog."
"I cared for my family."
"I transcribed a million words so other people could tell their stories."
"I survived."
Those are not detours from a creative life. They are the life that eventually feeds the work.
Suffice it to say, I have spent a lifetime paying attention to language.
I see and feel art … everywhere!
I am a writer.
I am an artist.
No qualifiers.
No permission sought.
No recent publication credits.
Just statements of fact.
That feels earned.
It’s time to return to my future and create an archive—not a complete collected works, but something smaller, livelier, and still traveling The White Poem’d Road. It will not be organized chronologically, but by conversation: poems answering one another across more than twenty-five years; an online poem or literary magazine publication unexpectedly speaking to something hidden in a laptop file; a notebook fragment finally coming into the light; a flashing cursor with more to say; an old collaboration waiting to be reignited; an essay that became a collage, now ready to find its words; and a line that has followed me for years, begging to become the title of something.
And there's the rescue dog beside my desk, but let's be clear, this is my third rescue. And by that I mean, the dogs rescue me, and not the other way around. She will be by my side while I rediscover the woman who once covered two rooms and one hallway with all her poems, trying to make sense out of things, for f's sake and for art sake.
No one else can write the book or finish this final chapter of my life.
I have spent decades preserving other people's words with extraordinary care, transcribing a million words so other people could tell their stories. The voices were endless, everybody clamoring for my attention. Voices that needed accuracy more than applause.
I need now to turn that same archival instinct toward my own work.
This feels less like retirement than reclamation.
Somewhere, there is a younger Anne stepping carefully along The White Poem'd Road, trying to decide which pieces should marry each other and which pieces should be brave and go off on their own.
If she's worried she isn't enough yet—and Anne has always been capable of spectacular bouts of Annexiousness—she needs to hear this, "You're still writing, still making art, still letting dogs rescue you, still collecting the fragments … you are a writer and artist, no apologies!"
And there is an enormous difference between an archive and a museum. A museum says, "Look what once existed." An archive says, "This is still alive and breathing."
I am not building a museum. I am creating a place where every version of myself can pick up the conversation where it left off.
That woman from a billion years ago could still teach me a thing or two.
I have plenty of news for her.
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