INSIGHTS

THEY BEAR no-nonsense names: Helen and Harriet. From their photographs, they look as though they might be kin. Each looks directly into the camera, asking for no quarter; neither is intimidated. Their faces are strong and pleasant. Neither woman looks to be easily fooled, and yet there is no hardness in their expressions. Helen Sant-myer is 88 years old; Harriet Doerr is 74. Last year, The Viking Press published Doerr’s first novel, Stones for Ibarra; this summer, G.P. Putnam’s Sons will publish Santmyer’s novel, … .And Ladies of the Club, a book she has worked on for 50 years. The Book of the Month Club has made … And Ladies of the Club one of its main selections.

What makes us feel so good when we read of the accomplishments of these women? It . must have something to do with the special quality of hope that is associated with late starts. Late starts prove that there is still time left. They prove that the race doesn’t always go to the swiftest or even to the surest.

It’s not by chance that this column begins with examples of late starts made by women. Historically, so much has been expected of women by others-men-that late starts were often their only available option. Those women’s early starts were made because of obligations to children or husbands or making ends meet; for their own dreams, they had to wait.

In the case of books, the late starts can help; the length of time spent getting ready to write can give the prose a power an early book might lack. In the New York Times review of Doerr’s book, the reviewer said that Doerr had prepared herself to write for 73 years. There’s some solace in that thought.

Late starts serve to comfort rather than to afflict, as do examples of early, fast starts. In the cases of Harriet Doerr and Helen Santmyer, their late starts resulted in successful finishes, but wouldn’t they have provided, in a sense, at least as much hope without a successful finish? Isn’t it the late start itself that inspires us, that shakes us out of the feeling that early starts are all that matter?

All through life, there are those who, when the gun goes off, are unbeset by second thoughts about the race’s worth. They spring from the blocks with the finish clearly in mind. We describe them as knowing where they want to go. For others, there are false starts and confusion about the finish. They are described as needing to find themselves.

Often, a late start is unintentionally discredited by the comment: “If only they had begun earlier.” But that robs the late start of its nobility. Santmyer explains that part of the reason her book took so long to write was her inability to devote all of her time to writing it. “That was the trouble-I always had to earn a living while I wrote.” There is no self-pity in her remark; it’s just a statement of fact.

To ask “what if?” questions makes us lose sight of her accomplishment. To ask how many more books either of these women might have written had they started earlier is not the point. They write what they do with the time they have left. They’ve never said, “It’s too late now.”

A late start argues that while the time may be short, it’s all the time there is. The late start can be driven by love or urgency or obsession. As opposed to early starts, which seek to prove something to someone else, the late start’s only purpose is to prove something to you. This doesn’t make late starts easier, however, because proving something to yourself can often be more complicated-especially if your tolerance for self-delusion is minimal.

A late start is an act of faith in yourself and in your own private sense of destiny. The pressure that we put on ourselves and on our children to achieve early in life is fully evident. When the achievements don’t come early, it’s easy then to rein in or dissolve our dreams. But the people who start late do neither. When they start to realize their dreams-however late, however slowly- it’s their character that they are actually defining.

Grandma Moses didn’t really begin painting until she was in her late 70s; novelistWalker Percy was a doctor for much of hislife before he hit his stride as a writer. Andthey are just two examples of well-knownlate starters. We can look around our cityand see others who are starting late, who arequietly picking up on dreams deferred. Formost of these late starters, there will be little acclaim and few hurrahs. But acclaimand hurrahs are not the object. Late starts aredifferent; they seem to come not out of desperation but out of a calm determination touse the time left for pursuits of privateworth. A late start says unselfishly, “This,at last, I am doing for myself.”