Just a week ago, my cousin Bruce asked, "When will you finish the book?" Finish? I thought. I need to get started. When I didn't answer, he asked again, "When will it be done?"
"I have no idea. It's a huge project!"
"So, when will the book be finished?"
I told Bruce, "I've challenged adults in classes just the way you are challenging me."
"Yeh," he said, "do as I say, not as I do."
After more friendly haggling over a date, we decided 18 months from last Saturday, with an extension of six months.
I've worked on it every day since returning to North Carolina six days ago. That may not sound like much, but it feels like a real shift in my commitment to write this wonderful biography of a beloved Baha'i couple NOW! One reason for the procrastination is the amount of material I already have, much of it collected in the mid 1980's, as well as ideas for a lot more. It's like overwhelming! But at least one friend since last weekend reminded me of the riddle: How do you eat an elephant? (answer: one bite at a time)
My commitment is not for any number of hours at this time, but to work on it every day. As happened in this first week, I expect most days, the work will be for at least two or three hours or more, but even if it's the end of some day when other activities have kept me from the book, I'll do at least a half hour before going to bed.
I have uncovered additional treasures in my plastic storage file box labeled "Blackwell Book." (BTW, this large collection of materials includes about twelve audio cassettes of my visiting with Ruth in 1984, items researched from Archives at the Baha'i National Center also in the mid 1980's, letters to me about the book from numerous prominent Baha'is who have since passed on to the next world, as well as recorded interviews done in the last few years of friends who knew Ruth in Colorado or in Haiti after Ellsworth's passing in 1978. This box has moved from Illinois to NC (several homes in NC) to the Navajo Nation in Arizona, back to NC, again to several locations.) I have three audio cassette tapes by Ellsworth from 1971 and 1972. I'd forgotten these, even though I transcribed them in 1984. In addition, I discovered another cassette of a fireside talk by Ellsworth in 1974 that is now in the middle of transcription. It is very inspiring to hear his lovable, sincere voice, full of stories and witt, humor and love. It sounds like he's in the living room with me now, but the recording was done twenty-five years ago.
I expect to post updates every week or so as a progress journal for me and for anyone who is interested in reading it as I move on now with this exciting real adventure.
