Cecile

I’m probably not the only writer who hangs on to every piece of material I’ve written: story starts, old journals, scraps of paper with a catch phrase or detail, and fragments from a workshop exercise. I was cleaning up boxes from my recent move, several holding college files, and came across my earliest writing, stories from my undergraduate classes while I was a student at Mills. I told myself that I either had to use this ancient stuff or toss it.

My creative writing instructor at the time was Cecile Pineda, author of Face, The Love Queen of the Amazon, and many other fiction and nonfiction books. One of my stories was twelve awful pages long. Reading it today, I couldn’t get past the first paragraph, excruciating with the clunky word choices, plot line, and construction, but Cecile slugged through it back then and offered helpful suggestions and encouragement. This week, I found one nugget, a line that inspired me to sit down and reuse it to create a newer, much shorter, better crafted story. Cecile became the muse of a main character, a magical person who enters another’s life like a quick, soft wind, but instills a seed of change.

After finishing the draft, I googled Cecile, wondering if I might find her address, see what she might be up to, and let her know I was still writing and thought of her fondly. Back when she was my teacher, I was invited to her home more than once in the Berkeley Hills, where I petted her well-behaved German shepherd, met several of her graduate students, had nice chats, and admired her simple landscaping idea that helped her avoid cutting grass. I kept in touch with her for a few years after I earned my Bachelor’s degree.

I learned that she died in 2022, while I still heavily grieved the loss of my husband after a drawn-out, horrible illness. I felt bad I hadn’t reached out to her again. I had over a decade to do so before my husband took ill. The New York Times obituary mentioned that Cecile turned to writing after a theater career, and that Face, her first novel, had been a finalist for the National Book Award. She never mentioned that, or talked much about herself.

My failure to contact Cecile prompted me to take immediate action with another Mills instructor, Elizabeth Siekhaus, who taught German literature classes. I wrote her a note, not wanting another minute to go by without thanking her for helping me when I applied tograduate schools. She took time to create a thoughtful, beautiful recommendation letter for me, a letter I came across while going through those boxes. The letter is so exceptional, I’ve decided to frame it, to remind myself that I do have potential. We are all unique; we all have gifts, even when we don’t give ourselves credit. Others see us when we can’t see ourselves.

I want the framed letter to remind me that it is important to let others know their great qualities, how their simple day-to-day actions affect us in positive ways, and how they helped us in our journey.

Reach out to your life’s tutors. Let them know you are grateful.