I knew what I wanted to do when I retired. I had been working in environmental law for nearly thirty years. But the place closest to my heart has always been our summer cabin at Chilliwack Lake. My grandfather had trekked in there nearly one hundred years ago when there was only a trail through the mountains. He came in by horseback and he bought land on the lake. My grandchildren are now the fifth generation to summer at the lake.

Now I want to write the history of the lake starting with the earliest days. Even before my grandfather arrived. I have six grandchildren who ask me questions and I want to know the answers.

I give myself six months of “doing nothing” after I retire. I unwind, shrug the weight of clients’ demands off my shoulders. I am now ready to begin. But I don’t know where to start. I am paralyzed with uncertainty. This project seems overwhelming. I look up creative writing courses and find one, “Memoir of Inquiry” led by Betsy Warland at the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University. I sign up. As I enter the first class, I am filled with trepidation. There are about thirty people in the class. As we go around the room introducing ourselves, I feel like an imposter. Everyone else has been writing for years. Some have been published in magazines and anthologies. I read to the group an opening scene of my childhood at the lake. I have my first experience of receiving critical comments on my writing. It is humbling. I hear a common thread of frustration around the table of writers not being able to complete their works. This hadn’t occurred to me. That I would not finish. I say to myself, “Well, that’s not going to happen to me.” The three-week course made me realize how much I didn’t know. I needed to take the next step in my journey.