Just Write

Hello after a few months...

Dear Friends,

Long time no speak. The summer flew by despite being quite sedentary.

I wore a boot on my left foot and had to remain idle (no biking, swimming, etc.). Then after six weeks of lumbering around, I was able to slowly start to be active again.

And then the pickleball kicked in, three solid months after I broke my foot – I’ve been playing again for the past month or so and am slowly getting mobility back.

As I’ve shared directly with my pickleball clients, I am taking a break from teaching per my doctor – he thinks that being on my feet all day is not the best idea for a while.

I’m saying all of this not solely as a frivolous update, but I want to acknowledge that I’ve had a ton of time to write, and I just haven’t been willing to kickstart my weekly work. I had planned to take a few weeks off over the summer, but taking time off from writing begets more time off from writing.

What inspired me to write today was a quote I read in a recent appreciation piece of the late-great North Shore writer and educator Peter Ferry. In an article by Rick Kogan in The Chicago Tribune, we learn that Ferry was “passionately an author and teacher, inspiring decades of students in his English and writing classes at Lake Forest High School, a youthful crowd of many thousands that included such later famous people as actor Vince Vaughn and Dave Eggers, one of the leading literary figures of our time.”

I’d met Peter on a few occasions and did not know any of this about him. I am thankful that I got to learn some universal wisdom from him and to also have heard his voice, which was both powerful and subdued.

A simple quote by Ferry motivated me to flip open my laptop and send out this short missive today. He said, “I learned a lot from [Eggers] even when he was a student: If you want to be a writer, you just write. I have long felt that I was compelled to write and so I did.”

Today, I am writing. It’s short and not profound, but I am writing.

I’m not sure if I’ll reboot a weekly letter or not, but I do intend to share some new music that my band is releasing next week as well as some possible offerings for corporate pickleball training (I’ve done a couple recently and they were really fun and engaging!). I also continue to work with and take on new life coaching clients.

Since it’s been a while… what have you been up to? What’s something you want to do or make, something that could be done imperfectly, but that you could start today?

Yours,

Matt

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matthewleebaron.com