I have only recently decided, everything considered, that I can now call myself a writer. I have come to this decision because previously I had put writers in that narrow box of what a few people on the planet did. And they, quite frankly, must have very different lives from my own.

All this is not to say that I wouldn't quietly admit to myself, sometimes, that I might actually be the thing I've always wanted to be since I was seven-a writer, writing. I breathed it, but it always seemed such a mystery to me how and why I could do it from one book to another.

Would I write between planting seasons when everything was in bloom and only needed watering and weeding?

Would I write before or after my nieces and nephew and their compatriots started running in and out of my house dripping pool water and Popsicles? Maybe the writing could wait while I read a book in a lawn chair and watched them happily splash the summer away.

Perhaps I would start to write after the leaves fell, so that I wouldn't miss a moment of them turning red and gold. If I was inside my house writing, I would miss the smell of wood smoke or the coolness of early fall days.

Of course, here I have to allow that because I have had the time for all of the above while working at home, I seemed not to connect any of it with my writing. It was just a fluke, I thought

Who could be so lucky?

A writer!

Was I one of them?

When I had trouble deciding what I was really doing with my days, the daylilies would bloom, a great movie would show up at the Plaza Cinemas, or children would suddenly appear and stay awhile, letting those thoughts fade away.

Through all of these distractions, who was to make me stay in my office, finish ten pages of that novel, or round out that picture book that had been staring at me each time I walked by it for a month?

The answer was no one. But miraculously, a few times a year I would indeed let some kind and patient person in another state know that I had somehow done it again. Magic. A book.

So, it came to me the other day that all of my days are what I do. All of my days have everything to do with how and why I write. You see, every time I have ever tried to sit in my office overlooking the flower garden and try to force myself to write for a couple of hours a day, I'd just end up watching an old movie or going for a walk.

I need the walks, the gardening, and the day-trips as much as my word processor to enable me to write. Now I know this.

So, I am indeed a writer, and other things too, thankfully. Thus, I happily try to make all the distinct parts work for me. They have everything to do with me being a writer.