Are you always 100% sure that everything you do, every decision you make, every risk you take (I sound like Sting, now, don’t I?”) is the right one? Do you consider yourself infallible? Do you make every move in a vacuum, never having to share your thoughts with a spouse, sibling, good friend or mentor? No? Me either.
I have been reading and rereading some of Pat Conroy’s wonderful novels and nonfiction books lately, and we recently visited the https://patconroyliterarycenter.org/ in Beaufort while on a trip to that beautiful Lowcountry town. What an icon of American letters he was, and what a colorful history of family he shared with us.
I have also listened to many of the videos that sprung out of his many talks and most especially the Conroy at 70 celebration that the town gave him just weeks before his death from pancreatic cancer. He spoke candidly, as did his family, about their struggles and strivings, the good and the bad of life, and how Pat fit into all of this and chose to make it public, using his wonderful novels as vehicles.
I remember two of the things that he said at his remarks at that celebration on the campus of USC-Beaufort that really stuck with me. One was his answer to a question about the best thing about his writing life over the years. He did not hesitate as he gave it. He appreciated and loved and cherished his time with his readers, almost all of whom became his friends in one way or another. His signature, “Hello, I’m Pat Conroy, now tell me who you are”, was legendary. The other thing was when he was asked about ever having doubts about his work, he quickly said, “Every day!”
It strikes me that if a man of his stature, a writer of his brilliance, a shaper of words so sweet that you could almost taste them as you read his luscious Lowcountry descriptions , could ever doubt himself and his work, who am I to ever worry about having any of those thoughts at all? People we view as having it all together sometimes don’t. They have stories, traumas, baggage and doubt themselves just as much as the rest of us do.
Pat Conroy sold over 20 million books in his brief lifetime. How many more stories could he have shared with us if he had ten, twenty, even thirty more years to hone his craft?
Did he have doubts about what he was doing?
Every day.