Mary Bea Sullivan

Annie Dillard

This week I am taking a contemplative writing class.  It is a luxury to conflate two of my loves–writing and prayer.  Anyway, I was assigned to write a letter to Annie Dillard in response to her piece, “On A Hill Far Away” from her book Teaching a Stone to Talk. Below is a copy of the letter.  I hope you will be able to make sense of things, even if you haven’t read the essay.

Dear Annie:

Or, should I say, “Dear Ms. Dillard?”  You don’t seem so formal, but to call you Annie when we have never met assumes a false intimacy.  You see, your writing gives me a glimpse into the depths of your soul, but you know nothing of mine.  Does that bother you, I wonder?  That people think they know your life when in fact they only know pieces?  I remember reading a quote from Anne Lamott that said something like, “People think they know me, but they only know the parts of me I choose to share.”

Ah, I’ve answered my own question.  Do you mind if I start over again?  

Dear Ms. Dillard:

Dang!  Where did you learn to write?  Ugh, there I go again, acting like I know you.  Since you probably sent this to the shredder after that dang, I’m going to move on more freely, less concerned about how you might be crinkling your nose at this note.  If you are still reading, I sincerely want to know so many things.

How did you learn to eye details like a hawk stalking mice in the field?   I sense writing is a spiritual practice for you.  But I looked on your website and saw you make a point of saying that you are not religious.  (By the way, I know you aren’t asking, but you REALLY need to hire a publicist–if that is your website I am concerned about your financial well-being.  How could someone so accomplished allow something so–I don’t know, so rudimentary represent them?  I thought that typeset was outlawed in 1985.)

Wait, is that the point?  Do you see such gorgeous detail because you waste not a moment on mundane issues like typeset and websites?  Are you unplugged most of the time?  Please don’t be offended, I’m not referring to the kind of “unplugged” which implies shifting around the kitchen in a batter-smeared housecoat with egg dangling from wiry hair.  I mean, do you turn off your phone, your computer, and your heater now and then so you can hear the silence?  Do you rock in a rocker at sunset, dissolving with the day?

I’m asking these questions because I want to know what you do to write in a way that makes me want to walk home with a little boy whose “eyebrows shoot up,” and “speaks in whole sentences.” I want to witness what happens when he’s greeted by a mother who  “works her hands” to muster up the courage to ask strangers if they knew the Lord as their personal savior.  How did you make me care?  Is it because you do?  What  brutal pain broke your heart open such that you have come to savor simple encounters?  Perhaps it wasn’t pain that broke you open-but love.  Richard Rohr says something about love and pain being the two paths to the Divine.  I could look it up, but I’m getting into that unplugged thing.  So, was it pain?  Love?  Both?

A friend of mine teaches writing workshops.  Sometimes she takes this irritating schoolmarm tone, waggles her finger and says, “Show it, don’t tell it!”  You, Ms. Dillard are the goddess of the show it!  I could smell the roast in your oven, I squirmed for both of you when you stood outside your neighbor’s screen door.  Tell me, do I abandon the realities of my world when immersed in your words, because you have abandoned yours?

I read on your website that you don’t read letters from admirers anymore.  Since I am now positive you aren’t reading this, I’m going to ask something bold of you.  (This begs the question, if I know you aren’t reading this, why am I writing it?  It’s the kind of question a good therapist would ask.)  Anyway, “Can we go to lunch?”  You seem so real, I think I would really enjoy being with you.  And you’re kind, I know that because even though you were freezing, you chose to pull up your jacket collar and spend a bit more time with that lonely boy.

I know you don’t consider yourself religious, I hope you won’t be upset, but you are a Christian.  Not only are you kind, you are grateful.  You related your choice to shiver with a soul that needed tending, to those who have stood with you.  From the snippets I gather, that Falwell-following neighbor is nothing like you–but you listened to her, treated her with dignity, and respected her.  I’ve met enough judgmental religious people to know, (in fact sometimes I am one) that you my friend, do Jesus proud.

This is so cool.  I am really glad you aren’t reading this.  In a way, I wish no one was, because it has been so freeing not to write for a grade.  I’m going to let these little letters streak naked across the page before the baton-weilding academic police return next week.  Hell, I might even write to Anne Lamott and Barbara Brown Taylor for the sheer joy of it!

But you know much more about the oppressive side of writing than this seminarian, don’t you?  What is it like to have the pressure of a fan base?  Deadlines?  What do you do when the well runs dry and gaggle of admirers show up with their buckets–thrusting them toward you?  What nourishes you such that you can open your eyes to see “golden foals running to keep from falling?”

I have a confession to make.  I have heard about you for a long time, but never read your work.  As you know, lots of great writers quote you.  “Annie Dillard this, Annie Dillard that.”  For the longest time I have thought, I need to read Annie Dillard.  But who has the time?

Is that what you help us to remember with your keen observations?  That the only way we will notice if a boy calls his parent “Father” or “Dad” is if we take time; time to listen–devoutly.

Bless you Ms. Dillard, Annie, Goddess of the Show It!  Thank you for emptying your heart out into the world and onto the page.

Love, (I can say that because you’re not reading this).
Love, love, love, Mary Bea

NOTE:  I learned in class that even though Annie Dillard says she is not religious on her website, she was raised Presbyterian and converted to Roman Catholicism as an adult.