I’m always delighted to learn that a friend who has survived a life-changing experience has found the courage and strength to create a new life for themselves. It’s not just about finding new things to do and new people to know; it’s about finding the authentic part of ourselves that exists beyond the circumstances and finding a new way to be.
John Mallen is a dear friend and professional colleague. I recently published his blog in our newsletter on September 9. One line from that first piece stayed with me: “I am living full.”
After the recent death of his wife, John searched for a way to reinvent himself since he was no longer a full-time caretaker. Once his wife passed, he found himself floating, unmoored in the sea of the past. Who am I going to be now?
Luckily, the path soon showed itself when our mutual friend, Ric, invited him to join him for a month at ArteSumapaz, an artists’ residency in the mountains of Colombia that Ric owns.
John took the challenge and spent a month in a beautiful foreign country where he didn’t speak the language, discovering what would come next. He used writing as his medium to explore various possibilities. He discovered that he wanted to write a book and share what he’d learned, a legacy of sorts. He began work on what he calls “My Third Act Playbook,” an exploration of how he will live this next and final chapter of his life. Admirable, and again, brave! John is back home now, and wrote me a reflection on his experience there.
Hi Marilyn,
A final note: Colombia did not end when the plane touched down on Sept. 3. It followed me home, not as a souvenir or a tidy lesson, but as a set of quiet disturbances — leading to changes in perception, appetite, judgment, and attention that are still working their way through me.
People ask me how the trip was for me. It has been only two weeks, and I am still waiting for clarity. I suspect there is no single response. I am undergoing a series of experiences that are guiding how I will go about living.
On Saturday, I sat on my deck looking across the green patch of the backyard and the smaller patch of this year’s vegetable garden toward the pink buds on the rosebushes Alex planted in her final years. Beyond them is the parking lot of the Ulster County YWCA.
I was still. I was calm. I sat for three to four hours. Without giving myself orders, I found myself practicing one of the realizations that had arisen during my Colombia visit: stillness. Eckhart Tolle called it presence in The Power of Now. Thich Nhat Hanh called it mindfulness in his Dharma talks. Stillness has arisen as something for me to cultivate in the formation of My Third Act Playbook.
During the days since my return, I find myself relinquishing judgment of others, even the light typecasting mental constructs to which I’ve been prone. Instead, I find myself more comfortable with physicist and consciousness student Tom Campbell’s teaching that no matter how well put together or how loopy a person may appear, each is doing the best they can.
I find myself stepping away from noise and sound, even well-produced music and podcasts. Silence, which once felt awkward, has become magnetic.
Yesterday I ventured into a sprawling specialty outfitting store with racks of the latest fall 2026 preppy items. The step-and-repeat racks of sportswear left me cowering as if I were escaping from overwhelm in a black-and-white Hitchcock film. The nature and human scale of ArteSumapaz had eroded my tolerance for material excess; I had to get out of there.
This morning I awoke with a dawning awareness. I envisioned a burst of brilliant fireworks arcing into the pitch-black sky, broad spokes shooting in a full 360 degrees. At the end of each spoke came a smaller burst accompanied by a Howitzer-like POP. Each burst represented a life situation dissolving, and in its place, a new realization appearing.
These effects are dynamic. I sense they are generating what I call realizations. These realizations, along with research, will, I believe, become the substance of “My Third Act Playbook.”
Wow. That’s what I would call a successful trip! What strikes me most about John’s reflection is that he still doesn’t have a tidy answer. Good. And again, brave.
He’s noticed what has changed. Stillness attracts him. Noise doesn’t. A store full of perfectly respectable sportswear suddenly becomes intolerable. Judgment is loosening. Things he might once have moved past without much thought are beginning to register. That’s how transformation works. We don’t necessarily recognize the change while it is happening. We notice its effects.
John is doing something else that matters. He’s writing it down. He isn’t waiting until he understands the whole thing. He’s recording what he notices while the meaning is still forming. Eventually, some of these realizations may become part of his Third Act Playbook. For now, he’s discovering what belongs there.
Writing can do that for us. We don’t always sit down knowing what we want to say. Sometimes write to find out.
That’s much of what we’ve been doing together in the Start Writing Now webinars. We make a little room, quiet some of the noise, begin with a word, an image, or something we’ve noticed, and see where it takes us. The story doesn’t have to be waiting fully formed. In fact, it rarely is.
JOIN US
Our next FREE Start Writing Now webinar is Monday, September 28, and I’d love for you to attend. Bring a notebook and a pen. Bring something you’ve been thinking about, or something you haven’t been thinking about at all. You don’t need to know where it will lead. That’s rather the point.
What Comes Next?
I’ve also heard from several of you who want more time to write and go further with this work. I’m considering offering two small, four-part classes. One would be for people who want to develop a writing project. The other would use writing to explore what is going on in your own life and perhaps discover something you didn’t know was there.
I’m still working out the details because I don’t want to invent a class and then go looking for people who need it. I’d rather find out what you actually want.
Below are a few questions. If either class interests you, please take a minute to reply. I’d like to know what would make it useful to you.
Here’s to your personal success,
Professor Marilyn Horowitz
Would You Be Interested in a Writing Class?
Before I put the classes together, I’d love to know if there’s enough interest. If you have a minute, please answer these three questions:
- Are you currently working on a writing project, or are you thinking about starting one? Or are you interested in going deeper into personal exploration and discovery?
- Would you consider paying $100 for four 2-hour classes?
- Which day would work best for you?
Tuesdays or Wednesdays? Classes would be held at 6:00 pm EST and most likely begin in mid-November.
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