Good morning all you readers out there. I had a long and tiring weekend but today I’m refreshed and happy. I spent Friday night with friends who cooked us a fine meal and engaged me with spirited conversation well into the night. Saturday, I went to a wedding at the ball park. After the wedding, the reception was held in one of the ball park suites where a battle raged on the field. After the game, I were treated to fireworks. I’ll bet that there aren’t too many people who can honestly say that they had fireworks on their wedding night.
Not that kind! Well, that too but I am referring to the kind where gun powder is fired into the air which explodes into a multitude of light and sonic boomers. I had a wonderful time. Sunday was recovery day. I was wiped out and I needed to rest and recover.
But I digress. I read a cool quote this morning which I’d like to share with you.
“Do no go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Reading this quote, I was hit with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, following the path is easy. It’s what is expected. Fall in line, conform, and do as your told. I know that my girlfriend would welcome this from me, at least, some of the time. Yet, one of the reasons she loves me is that I do blaze my own trail. I go my own way. I forage ahead and damn the consequences.
Admittedly, I’ve gotten into trouble on a number of occasions and paid a price for my independence. Yet, it is who I am. One thing I’ve learned in life is that to be happy with myself, I have to be who I am. If I’m not happy with me and who I am, how the f**k can I make someone else happy.
So, I walk where there is no path. I am enjoying this period of discovery. It’s filled with wonder and joy. True, I make a wrong turn now and then and I need to back track a bit. So what. It’s a learning experience. What I still need to figure out is how to leave a trail. I do so in my professional life. Yet, I need to figure out how to leave a more lasting trail in my personal life.
I have talent for doing things. Whether it is hanging a TV on the wall so it won’t fall off or grilling a steak to perfection, I manage to do things in creative ways that people appreciate, or so they tell me. Yet, it is not enough. I want to more. I want to blaze a trail for others to enjoy.
Which is why I write and paint. I can express myself in ways that is impossible to do in real life. Perhaps some of my creative works will survive my life. Wouldn’t that be cool? Can you imagine? What if a hundred years from now, some picks up one of my books and reads it, or stumbles across one of my paintings and says, “Wow!”
What would Mona think? Would she enjoy someone reading her story well after her author moved on? I think she would. There is a lot of me in Mona.
What about you? What do you think?
The image I’ve displayed shows the quote surrounded by a spiraling stair case. I can’t imagine how many steps it would take to climb that stair case and reach the top. Hundreds? Thousands?
“Where do you write?”
Moving indoors, I either sit in a chair in my living room or my studio with the game on or more likely, playing music in the background. Since I have a day job I may write while on lunch, often at a table at a nearby café. I’m used to typing while slowly munching on a sandwich or drinking a cup of coffee.
That’s the wonderful thing about today’s laptop computers and tablets. I can write almost anywhere, if I choose. I like utilizing any spare time to write including jotting down a chapter or two in the waiting room as my car was being serviced. I prefer the use of a laptop and tablets since I can later read what I wrote which is a big plus.
Well, for me, my brain is constantly playing imagery in the background. It seems my best dialog comes to me at four in the morning while I’m half asleep. It is that sleep state between being fully awake and fully asleep where my mind floods itself with recollections of music, imagery and/or conversations. If you don’t experience it, consider yourself lucky. I might be jealous of you, though.
Season’s Greetings
What inspired you to write?
Jump ahead to the later part of my life and I was becoming increasingly anxious to create something other than computer code. I picked up pencil and paper and rediscovered drawing. Picking up paint and brushes, I rediscovered painting. For a while, I thought about trying to market my creative works. I was quickly frustrated by the process and abandoned my feeble marketing efforts. I still draw and paint but I do it for the love of the craft.