It Can Be Done — inspiration from my grandfather.
Adorning the wall of my grandfather’s study in the picturesque, quintessential British village of Mayfield in East Sussex, hangs a poem by Edgar Albert Guest; It couldn’t be done.*
“There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.”
It was positioned in a shaded corner of the room, close to the door, in a very subtle frame no bigger than a table mat. Nevertheless, it jarred. It stood out despite its relative insignificance to the adjacent walls, which fill the space with paintings (some by my grandfather), blown-up portraits of his late wife and captivating book covers from his days of being a literary agent.
“Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
It jarred me now as a 31-year-old but not as a child. I had never noticed it before, which doesn’t surprise me looking back, for what can a child not do anyway? Those words would have been lost on most children and rightly so, thinking the impossible is a feature that adulthood sadly bequeaths us.
I wasn’t the only one jarred by its presence in my grandfather’s study. I observed many of his journalistic compatriots, neighbours, family and friends pass through his place of creativity, only always to pause just before they exit the room and digest the 24 lines of E A Guest’s poem.
“Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.”
My grandfather was first and foremost a writer. In recent years I, like many here, have a burning desire to pursue this craft and explore what could be achieved by doing so. You may be surprised that despite the writer lineage in my family, and my pursuit to publish at least something, ashamedly I had never opened one of his novels. He had written over a dozen in his life and, having known this since time immemorial; it rarely crossed my intrigue into picking one of them up. That is until now.
“So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!”
Reflecting on my grandfather and E A Guest’s poem, and having read two of his novels, my desire to write has never been as strong. Coupling the stanzas and the recorded proof of their power on my grandfather’s output gives me the strength to do what cannot be done. I’ve started my daunting, but ever-so-exciting novel and this piece right here is my first foray into writing on Medium.
“Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
I’ll get to my grandfather’s other novels in time — I know he’d prefer me to write than to read. He’d likely scoff, not at my humble attempts for sure, but for wasting my time reading his stories rather than creating my own.
Writers’ block for me is not the lack of creative prowess or simply knowing what to write next, but rather starting in the first place. I can safely speak for many when I say we all need mental pushes and encouragement from time-to-time to achieve our goals — personal or professional. I, however, am lucky enough to have found my motivational root, that being my grandfather and the poem that spurred him on to write his books over so many years.
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.”
As I take off my coat and hat and start this journey, Medium remains a great place to seek those moments of reassurance and get a much-needed confidence boost from the people who’ve been there before. Branching out as extensions to my motivational root, it will continue to be a source as I tackle the thing that couldn’t be done.
*In fact, the title of the poem hanging on my grandfather’s wall had it in reverse; It Can Be Done. Whether or not that was an intentional rephrasing by my grandfather or not, it only adds to what is already a powerfully fun and motivational 24 lines of inspiration.
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
My grandfather passed earlier this year, and It Can Be Done was read at his funeral. It will now adorn a wall in my home, although in a less shaded and no-so-in-the-corner position.
