The Year Brought Teachers; The Year Brought Friends.

Another year passes us by, and within each of its seasons, I found there were encounters that captivated; lessons learned; people and things loved, floating adrift, only to be found again.

There were leaps and bounds along with cross-legged stay-still-where-you-are's. There were words and pictures, stories and silence, falsehoods and truths. There were fingers, toes, tears, laughter. There were promises and plans, some broken, some seen through. There were cups of tea we drank, and there were trees at which we stared, many mesmerized. There were stars and a blood moon. There were gusts of wind and warm breezes. There was blue, like the sky beneath which we all spent our days; there was green that fell to orange, and brown that fell to empty, and empty that was cloaked by white, snow that is, the fruit of winter; then there was yellow… yellow, yellow, like the sun and flowers. 

There were meetings with friends, old and new. There were meetings with strangers. There were, it seems, meetings with fate too. There was both solemnity and elation. There was what-to-do-now and ah-yes-that’s-just-what-I’ve-been-seeking.

 Then there was happiness for another year's arrival.

A cheerful New Year to everyone!

My Thoughts on Writing (So Far, That Is)

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Listless, fickle, uncertain: I have often described myself this way. As I grew up, each year would stretch out before me, the bearer of new pursuits. But I would shudder after realizing once again that this or that preoccupation wasn’t my calling, for it didn’t end with a pounding in my head or the inexplicable need to go further. Thus I would leave without giving the matter too much thought.

Writing was different. I tried to leave it behind; I couldn’t.

In the middle of walking away towards something else, I’d become enamored with blank pages in front of me and the tremendous way they seduced me into telling my secrets, learning once again what I knew, and searching earnestly for what I had yet to learn.

Even still, there are occasional (perhaps more frequent than I care to admit) stretches of time when I think about leaving, about putting down the pen. But these hardly last. I feel their bitterness and recognize their temporal nature before allowing them to deceive me too significantly. These weeks are merely lapses, for I soon remember that while great loves may be veiled from us for a period of time, they are rarely, if ever, diminished.

Indeed, I have wondered before whether "the writer" is writing's star-crossed lover, for writing is and perhaps alway will be a terrible and unforgiving undertaking for them. In the end, though, it will also be incessantly their own. Thus the writer may be afflicted and morose at times; that can be granted. But they are also the happiest person to walk the earth. When words come well, bliss is found, and the frustrations inevitably subside as they are melded into the halfway-remembered, rose-tinged history of the archetypal romanticized process.

And so I, and many others I am certain, find a pen once more in spite of all else and succumb to the lure of words.