I'm a writer but I'm not writing. I guess that means I'm not really a writer. But I can't let that be true …. because …. I am a writer! I need it. And I will write. I will make myself write and I will write until I write something worth reading.
It has become too easy to find excuses. And eventually I don't even need to say or think the excuse. All I need to do is know there must be one … out there in the world or in here in my mind. It's there …. somewhere …. so I don't write.
Well, that's crap!
Filled With Joy And Free From Pain
My mother died in April of 2003. Below I captured a summary of her last hours and my thoughts. It is very short. I wrote it a few days after her death. She lived until the age of eighty-one. Much of that life was in or on the edge of poverty. Her last twenty-five years were lived as a widow. We helped her with money and housing and furniture …. and we spent time with her. Most Sundays, holidays, and birthdays were family gatherings at her home.
Her health was good until cancer took her.
One More Chance For A Meaningful Life
I have lived much of my life in defiance of logic, in mortal combat with reason, against my own best interests and without my full knowledge or participation. I have chosen not to choose. I have watched life unfold before me and followed the path in front of my nose. I worked hard and with mild success but no joy. An empty frustration eventually seemed normal. Those annoying opportunities that sometimes beckoned to me from uncharted ambiguity failed to breach a perverse protective barrier which shielded me from risk and reward.
Read MoreYou Gotta Know When To Fold'em
For me, the game began on September 10, 1948 when the Dealer first dealt me a hand. It was not a great hand, not a good hand, but at the time I did not know the difference. I looked at my cards in bewilderment. How does this poker game of life work? What are the rules? What are the chances a guy like me can win? Over the years I began to understand that the hand I'd been dealt was quite a poor hand and some hard decisions were necessary.
But I had no courage.
Read MoreWhen You Don't Want To Write About It
What does a writer do when he doesn't want to write about it? What does a thinker do when thinking comes so hard. What does a doer do when yearning to do a thing has long since left him? You do stuff, you think stuff, and then you write it down.
Is it a lack of courage to face those words as they appear across the computer screen? Or can I blame it on depression and take another nap. Those nagging words that strain against my fingertips, they taunt me. They will not rest until my fingers touch those black and lettered keys while thoughts escape the prison of my dark subconscious mind.
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