I remember while traveling in Zurich, Switzerland. What a charge I got out of visiting the writers group associated with the English speaking Zurich International Women's Association (ZIWA). There's something about living or traveling in a foreign country that brings English speaking people together in ways they would never appreciate at home. There's suddenly a new interest in gathering together for everything from book clubs, a weekly 'Stammtisch' where people meet purely to get together, have a drink and shoot the breeze, to wine tasting, quilting, day-outings, travel groups, or practicing foreign language skills. I left their monthly writers group feeling inspired, energized, excited and happy. Something I had not experienced in a long time, being on the road in a state of grief, and looking for a way to find a new purpose for my life.

When we get together and learn each other's stories about the individual struggles we are going through to thrive even way out here in the 'boondocks,' we gain compassion for each other and ourselves in this process that is both an intellectual endeavor and an art form. In the isolation born of living so far from town and from other people, we are not that different from those who live in a city where they don't speak the language.  An even more telling similarity is that American Expats living in a foreign country are engulfed in a culture and a way of thinking that is completely different from their own. How similar this is to the plight of the average writer!

As writers we see the world in unique and subtle ways that most people are oblivious to. I so enjoyed that writers group in part because it was like realizing I am not a freak. There are more of us out there than I realized. And they say that 'the pen is mightier than the sword,' for a reason. Writing is important: individually, socially, historically, psychologically and to establish and reflect living culture as it forms inside us and all around us...Writers both drive and record what is.