It’s Never Too Late

I’ve been writing stuff since I was a little girl; I always thought of myself as a writer. But until 2019, I never wrote a book. Many of my friends have written lots of books; people have kept asking me why I didn’t write one; I’ve thought about it often over many years, sometimes even agonized over it. I’ve started a couple of books, then abandoned the projects. I’ve helped other people write their books. Now, here I am with my first published book. I can hardly believe it myself. For a while, I thought it was too late — one of those things I should have done when I was younger. Of course, when I was younger, I thought I should wait until I was older and wiser. All this is to confess: I, like all other human beings, have self-limiting thoughts that make perfect sense to me — until they don’t.

It’s never too late. It’s never too early. It’s never the perfect time. Thats all made-up malarkey. Time has nothing to do with anything in life. Inspiration, our inner voice that whispers seductively to us so that we are drawn to the thing heart and soul, is all that matters. Once inspired, nothing can stop us. We can’t summon inspiration; inspiration summons us. But we don’t hear it until we notice how repetitive and dull the drone of our habitual thinking is and just usher it out of the chambers of our mind. Inspiration flows right into the cleared space, the bright openness that welcomes a completely fresh thought.

Strapped uncomfortably on a crowded airplane on a flight from London to New York in 2018, letting my mind drift absently over the cottony tops of clouds, inspiration murmured to me. “You’ve always known; you just didn’t know you knew.” Stories poured into my mind, long-forgotten stories from the earliest dawning of my awareness, that illustrated how obvious it is that the Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought are true, whether we know them or not. I saw in a flash of clarity that we accept the fact and miss the truth. Of course. Thinking is what we do; no one ever tells us about the space before the thoughts, about the freedom we have to direct our own thinking. We come to accept whatever comes to mind as though we had nothing to do with it.

The introduction to the book wrote itself in my mind. I was too jammed into a full flight to even consider getting out my computer to write down what I was seeing, but it was etched in me. I knew I wouldn’t forget it. It took a while after I got home to clear the decks to sit down and start to write, but I no longer questioned whether I would. The voice of inspiration had become the background music of my days. Most of the book was spread out across my mind before I had committed a single word to text.

The final product went through 65 front-to-back edits from me, nonetheless, and I’d still be editing it except that I had a moment of inspiration for another book, so I decided to be finished with this one to start on the next. I remembered. with a laugh, how an editor of mine in my early days of journalism, had joked at a party that it was a good thing I respected deadlines; otherwise (after several years), he said, I’d probably still be revising my very first feature. Another bad habit of thought: I’m always sure if I look one more time, I’ll see a way to make it better. Even as I scanned through a copy of the finished book a few days ago, I saw so many things I wished I could improve or change. Too late now. It’s no longer mine. It has left home to live on its own, such as it is.

But it is humbling, really, to continually peel back habits of thought that were so ingrained for so long they did not feel like the tight wrapping inhibiting creativity. The biggest lesson I have seen is that it’s never too late to learn, or to be gobsmacked by recognizing more of  your own self-created nuttiness. The beautiful truth I have experienced is that inspiration — intuition, creativity, realization — whatever you choose to call it —  is truly eternal and timeless. It is like the mysterious darkness of the universe; all creation flows through it infinitely; it is the force that gives form and order to the allness, and yet we cannot know it, just feel it and give it our unique shape through the magical kaleidoscope of our own minds.

So my book is the story of ordinary human-ness. How we awaken to thinking, and then take it for granted, and then take it seriously, and then forget we are the ones doing it and become victimized by it. Then, if we are are stopped in our tracks for even a moment to clear our heads, how ever-evolving moments of truth loosen the locks on our intuition, imagination, hope, vision and set us free to fall into the embrace of the universe and discover we can dance with it.

The book is now widely available as an e-book; the printed version can be ordered and will start shipping in mid-June. I’m grateful if anyone wants to read it, but I’ve already savored the joy of finding my own freedom in it, so it really doesn’t matter. Like watching your adult child stride into the world on their own adventure of life, I’m curious to see where it goes and who it touches, but I’ve done all I can to give it a start.

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