Heather Wilkerson, Eva’s Journey author, (age about 23)
Having grown up in Colorado, hikes were common. This particular moment was on a hike up Ruby Mountain near Gray’s Peak in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Photo credit: Julie Plylar, a cherished fellow college student friend, hiking buddy and fellow geology explorer.
Many years later, I sit in a chair at age 59, writing these words. Here are some reflections of the history, reason, hope and dream for not only this one book, Eva’s Journey, but for a life of creativity, writing and helping…
The History
I was sitting in my rented townhouse in Sunnyvale, CA in the early ‘90s one evening. (I was in my late 20s) By day I worked at a psychological publishing house in Palo Alto, CA, called Consulting Psychologist’s Press. In the evening, I was either at a Unity church if there was an activity, or at my home as was the case this night. I am a home body who prefers a good book, or home activity to social night life. That was always true, even in high school and college.
My boyfriend clearly wasn’t coming back. I’d met him at a photography club, and in this moment my heart was missing him very much. After just over a year of friendship with him he’d found someone else, maybe related to my home-bodyness.
It felt disorienting to be without someone who was like a brother, best friend, and life partner all at once, and then suddenly… POOF! they are out of your life and you are left trying to reinvent yourself, and trying to re-find meaning in what once had meaning. It wasn’t deep depression, just a mild ache I thought would lessen once I found someone else, but some guys rise above the crowd and set your standards higher. That was the best thing that ever happened to me from a self-esteem standpoint, but it made life harder to be alone after he left.
This night, sitting in my townhouse I had a weird idea. It wasn’t so much an idea as an obsession. I needed to write something down and I needed a laptop to do it. I didn’t have a laptop. “Why don’t I just write it down on a notebook?” I asked myself.
“NO!!! I need a laptop!” I am not one to make expensive purchases, especially something as frivolous as a laptop so I put the thought out of my mind. Yet night after night it would return. “YOU NEED A LAPTOP!”
Ok, Ok, I thought a week later, as this was a very persistent voice. This was unusual. I had some extra money saved up, as my computer job at the publishing house paid me pretty well, so I went and bought my first laptop.
I sat down to write the all-important words that started all of this, and they wouldn’t come. I had writer’s block. I had been learning meditation at my church so the next night, I tried something new. I sat and meditated about 20 minutes then went to my laptop.
I wrote a weird thing about a cougar and a boar meeting on a path. “This is why I needed to buy a laptop?” I asked my puzzled self.
Fast forward several years later, that same Word document had over 100,000 words. Some entries were obscure things like the cougar and boar story, others were poems, others took on characters. Eventually my heart landed on a few characters that I revisited over and over, including Sam and Eva.
At that point I didn’t think of it as a book. It was just a form of journal writing I liked, and with time the document had grown. The first time I realized the Sam and Eva story had enough word count to actually be a book was around 2003. The final publishing of the book wasn’t until 2016.
The Reason
The writing of the manuscript was more self-therapy than anything else. My characters were my companionship early on that filled the hole the loss of a boyfriend had created. Later, it became means for exploration of my own consciousness. It is amazing what surfaces, then heals in the course of writing. It becomes addicting, or at least it was during that stage of my life.
So, once I realized there was an actual novel in this long sprawling 100,000 word document, that brought up another question. What would be a reason for publishing it? At first I could see no reason, so I didn’t think seriously about it. I wasn’t thinking of it as a source of income. I didn’t know if this kind of book would sell, and even to consider turning it into something I was trying to sell was so antithetical to what it had always been to me, it didn’t seem realistic.
Nevertheless, I continued to prune down the manuscript, moving that which was not the Sam and Eva story to a different document, and reordering the story to be more sequential because in writing it, I skipped back and forth through time periods often.
In the end, my reason for publishing was about the story of the book. I genuinely liked it, and thought others might also. It was also metaphorically and physically stepping forward into the unknown in an area I wasn’t familiar with to grow me, and to see what good can come from it.
The Hope
In the process of publishing it, I had time to go deep with what it is I hope or envision for the book:
1) self-expression and communicating this deep inner life with others in case it might benefit or entertain them, and getting the feedback and immersion into a community of souls this could provide.
2) Finding ways to use the book and associated activities it would lead to, to help others. Several pathways come to mind. Helping schools and education, especially for young children. Helping children in underserved areas of the country. Helping those on reservations. Learning from all I seek to help. How would I do this? I didn’t know. I just knew I wanted to do it.
3) Using this book as the debut novel toward a new vocation which would hopefully lead to other writing, other collaborations and other new pathways. I am not stuck on the methods. I think it would be great fun to make this book’s story and main points into a movie. Will that happen? Maybe, maybe not. I am not stuck on it, but would definitely consider it should an opportunity ever arise.
The heart of the work, I would hope would be finding ways to translate the book’s success into real world helping of real people, not through government, but through ordinary heart to heart grass-roots helping. All of these hopes are written in the context of the the already written book, but apply to future works also. Many of these hopes have come to pass in small ways since 2016 but more is possible.
The Dream
When I think of ‘The Dream’ I think floodgates, epiphanies and ‘sudden’ moments.
Suddenly those I am helping have resources they didn’t have before.
Suddenly I am fully and successfully in a profession I wasn’t in before which has led to many other dimensions not previously seen.
Suddenly because of the work, I am in community with many more people, in a heart-centered, learning, growing, helpful way.
Suddenly my book’s sales is on the rise in this or that new area revealing it is helping.
Suddenly I learn of good happening I didn’t intend or think of.
Suddenly all boats are lifted.
The synergy of the work through time, creates a community that could exist without me. The communities formed and individuals helped transcend the book, and the elevated situations of many are so natural now they move on and do their own great things.