Henriette Anne Klauser - Put Your Heart on Paper: Staying Connected In A Loose-Ends World

PUT YOUR HEART ON PAPER

A Bantam Book/ September 1995

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint from the following: Rabbi Jack Riemer,
Guides to Ethical Wills, Personal Growth. Originally produced for the United Jewish Appeal,
Young Leadership Cabinet, by the National Jewish Conference Center, New York.
Copyright 1978 by National Jewish Conference Center.

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1995 by Henriette Anne Klauser
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klauser, Henriette Anne.
Put your heart on paper : staying connected in a loose-ends world
/ Henriette Anne Klauser.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-57505-0
1. Self-disclosure. 2. Self-disclosureCase studies. 3. Letter
writingPsychological aspects. 4. Interpersonal communication.
5. Interpersonal relations. I. Title.
BF697.5.S427K57 1995
158dc20 95-8739

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v3.1

An author dedicates a book to those who brought life to that project,
those to whom the author can honestly say, Without you, there
would be no book. I dedicate this book, with love and wonder, to my
sons, James and Peter, to my daughters, Emily and Katherine.
I owe you my life, not the other way around.

O NE GORGEOUS AUTUMN DAY, WITH THE BLUEST SKIES YOU ever saw glistening all around, I board the Bremerton ferry to escape and write. As I travel the sea lanes back and forth across Puget Sound, I notice a good-natured fellow pushing a broom and emptying the garbage each time we pull into port. He is whistling some tune. He stops to talk.

Youre working hard.

So are you.

He tells me a little about himself. His name is John. He has three children, ages five to fourteen. In answer to his question, I say that I am working on a book about how anyone can use writing to get close and stay close to people they love. In it, I tell stories about people who have used writing to heal hurts, to celebrate joys, and to communicate with each other on a deep leveleven if theyve never written much of anything before.

He looks pensive for a moment, and then blurts out, Hurry up and write your book. I dont know how to reach my teenage daughter. Hurry up and write your book. I need it.

So here it is, Johnfor you, and for all the people like you who sometimes feel disconnected in this fast-paced world of ours. Getting reconnected is as simple as a piece of paper and as near as your pen.

* * *

Every single story in this book is true. The people are all real, and most of them wanted me to use their real names. (A few names have been changed for privacy.) They come from normal families with ordinary lives, as rushed and chaotic as yours or mine. These families do not spend their nights sitting by the fire making corn-husk dolls. They do not spend every waking hour writing to each other. But writing has given each one a new sense of belonging.

Some of the stories, as youll see, come from my familyyoull get to know all of us quite welland many of them come from the people who over the years have taken my writing workshops or who wrote to me after reading my first book.

Once I started this book, I became a magnet attracting stories; I was radioactive, sending out signals, and the people I needed to meet and the stories I needed to hear came up and tapped me on the shoulder. My writing comes alive when I take it out of the house, out of the office, away from the desk; even now, as I write this, I am sitting in a cafit is almost midnightand life is happening all around me. Often as I was struggling for just the right word or example, the conversation at an adjacent table would suddenly come into focus and gave me just what I needed.

The people I met not only gave me their stories, they blessed my work in daily, unexpected ways, sometimes without even realizing the boost they provided. Once when I was sitting in dark caf, hunched over my Powerbook and notebooks, the espresso barista, who had been taking the trash out to the back lot, stopped by my table and grabbed my hand.

Cmere. Youve got to see this. Youve been working hard enough. Come.

Startled, I left my computer, my coat, and all my paperwork on the table and followed his lead through the storeroom, out to the dumpster. Was it an animal curled up asleep that he wanted me to see?

Triumphant, he pointed to the sky with a sweep of his hand.

Look at that sunset! You just had to see it. Now you can go back to work.

Moments like that were like a sign; they kept me believing.

This book about connections would not exist without the connections in my own life. First, my family:

Jim, my husband, resourceful, creative, unstoppable, who has some of the same people skills that I notice in our childrenthe apple doesnt fall very far from the tree. He is also the behind-the-scenes genius, who spent hours and hours and uncounted hours on the computer, formatting and printing and making the manuscript workable.

Our firstborn, James, imaginative, original, and adventurous, with uncompromising loyalty to family and friends, who will not accept the answer Nothing to the question Whats wrong?

Peter is the next in line, with a wit that keeps us all going. He is good-natured and gregarious; a good listener and a romantic, he teaches me how to listen and love.