As The Train Passes The Station

Are you on the train? Or are you at the station? From which perspective would you choose? Do you work there, on the train or at the station? Or are you a customer, someone who has paid a price for the ticket and is about to embark, just arrived, or just now leaving the destination? 

Are you family or friends seeing one off or searching the crowd for a long lost face?  Are you travelling for work and so have no one to greet you or see you off? Are you a spy searching for information or an informant? Are you searching for a suspect or a victim? Are you simply watching the trains go by?

Are you lost or sad, or excited and eager? Who are you in all this mess? Or is no one there but you? Are you the ticket collector on the train, going about your business, or have you snuck on board and trying to avoid him or her? Do you enjoy trains or hate them? Did you want to travel by train or are you shackled to the method of travel for some reason or another? What is that reason? 

Is it evening, morning, or so late that all are asleep but you? Have you lost your luggage, or do you like to travel light? Did you pack a lunch or are you a big spender?  How long is your trip or how short? Where are you going, where have you come from? Are you stopping to catch a bus or a taxi, or renting a vehicle to get around? Do you watch out the window or do you people-watch? Or are you consumed with your technological object in your hand or lap? Is something important or frivolous happening in your life right at that moment?

Can you see the stories, the adventures, the tragedies, and the comedies as they pass you by?  Can you see how many directions and how straight the paths you could take?  Can you see just how many stories there are at one juncture of one place in a fraction of a few moments?

Don't delude yourself or let others make you think it has all been written and there can never be anything new.  Those are the ones who have lost their ideals.  They have forgotten their dreams and let their imaginations dry up.  There is always a new story to tell, a new character to meet, and a new world to walk among.  The similarities are what allow us to connect, but the stories are not their plot points.  They are like us: important to the final detail and as unique as fingerprints.

Feel Good Inc.

I will admit that yesterday I looked at my book like some intimidating door to this huge expanse that I had to build all myself; like all the parts to a house laying on the property but no blueprints except the ones in your head.

Then I wrote my blog post.  By the time I finished, it didn't feel so intimidating. It suddenly felt more welcoming.

Okay, I thought. I can ease into this.  And suddenly, boom! A chapter and a half edited without any sweat, blood, or tears.  Can this actually occur? And can it occur twice in a row?

That I cannot tell you, but I can tell you that it has been leaning heavier in my mind since yesterday.  And now I feel I have been waiting all day to get to this point.  Maybe that's why I did all the dishes, folded all the clothes, took the kiddos to the library, went grocery shopping, did all the laundry, and made dinner.  Just so I could say, I've done enough for all of you, now leave me to it. I've got work to do.

And here I am, once again at the precipice, ready to dip into my adventure once more.  The pool is calm, undisturbed and so beautiful in this light.  It is as I am the first to disturb such water, and I feel that it has invited only me into its depths.

Into its depths, I willingly go. For it will whisper stories no other can tell. And I am ready to hear.

A Rusty Squeezebox

Reach up and take it.  Sometimes writing feels just out of your grasp, currently like my son's Mickey Mouse balloon.  The string is just an inch outside your grasp, even on your tippy toes.  But you try anyway.  Because that is what you want, what your entire being desperately desires.  Life, however, has other things in mind for the time being.

There it sits, waiting like the most loyal of all creatures.  It will be there, exactly as it was left.  The only regret will be time which inevitably takes your memory and carves it into a dull thing that seems shapeless.  Once the opportunity presents itself, we grasp at it and it is ours to carve once more into the sharp and visceral image that we must re-conjure.

It is much easier said than done.

One thing I can say about time and the space between the actual writing.  You can come to know your story in far more sharp detail than you ever thought.  The downfall, inevitably, is the time you take to assess your own ability at it.  And there lies our imperfection and self doubt, and that will be the death of your world if you allow it to be overtaken by such demons.

Here I sit next to my draft, which I have finally finished, by the way.  And here I sit writing on this blog of all places, rather than in my draft.

Why in all that is holy am I writing in here and not there? Have you ever been intimidated by yourself? Have you ever been intimidated by your own creation? This is my battle now.

I let my music box unwind itself and the music has long since played. And now I come back.  My story is sharp in my mind, but the work of the next draft is new territory.  To quote Samwise Gamgee, "If I take one more step, it will be the furthest from home, I've ever been."

I've taken that step, and now I take another and another, and I feel so much further away than before.  I guess I need to remember what Frodo replied, quoting Bilbo, "It's a dangerous road, Frodo, going out your door.  And if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

I guess it's time to wind up my music box and see what plays now and what wondrous things I learn from it.

Adventure is a wondrous world that few are brave enough to experience.

A few good reasons to read. Courtesy of James Howe, an author who has some of the most entertaining reads for littles.