I find stories and poems all around the house, on various devices, and in journals. Many times, the words are unfamiliar. I write in the dark hours between the late news and the good morning shows. My muses have no respect for schedules or appointments. When they awaken from slumber, they tap on my forehead, hands, and neck.
I type choppy sentences, hackneyed phrases, and alliterative descriptions as first drafts. Then, I email the pieces to myself for further inspection. I look them over the next morning, weeks later, or whenever I need something to provide inspiration. The hideous ideas are never revealed. Some ditties sound clever and pithy at 3 a.m. After lunch, they cannot stand tall against a careful editor’s eye.
I have filled a cargo container’s worth of paper with my scribbles. Five self-published books have come out of these musings. When I was eleven and carrying bushels of reading material home from the library, I could not have foreseen myself seeing my work on the shelf of our local branch. It was the fulfillment of a dream that my heart must have kept secret from me!
Whether or not my words are ever appreciated by another soul, I keep going. I describe the ordinary minutiae of my daily existence. I write letters to souls who are no longer on this plane. I try to teach and inspire. I make abstract thoughts shake off their sharp edges. I put words together so that I can add reason, intention, consequences, and order to mystifying experiences. I am scrawling a cow on a cave wall with bits of charcoal so that descendants will look it over and ponder what I have seen, felt, dreamed about, feared, and loved.
My footprint is irregular, unbalanced, and indiscernible at times. I hope the mark I leave on the world has a purer, more fetching form.
#2020bigyearproject