I AM A WRITER

I am a writer. I am often misdiagnosed as a jack of all trades because I make a concerted effort to run away from the gift. It is a burdensome gift. Those who carry it know. Especially when I find myself in my current state where it is now what God has designated for me to use to earn my keep. I am not claiming to know the mind of God. I take all my cues from my current situation. I have wonderful skills however; I cannot seem to be able to buy a job, even if I had the means. It is as if God is saying very clearly; by gum, I have given you this talent and you will use it. This requires that I commit to and focus on a task at hand. These are not two of my favorite things.

I am a writer. Not to be confused with a novelist or poet. A writer is not bound by genre though there are those purists who feel that one must excel at some certain thing to call themselves that. I am a writer; a crafter of story. If that story takes a notion to render itself in iambic pentameter, or iconic prose or forthright essay, is never a foregone conclusion. It is the story that I live for. The literary sculpting if you will. A story is as much visual as it is literal. I see what I am saying. Laying word and phrase atop one another in ever escalating action. So that when I am done it is whatever it needs to be. It glows brightly or hotly. It is lustily wanton or monastically prosaic. It is whatever it needs to be in service of the story. I will tell the erotic story of coitus with equal joy as the religious epic with piety. It is whatever the story dictates.

Being a writer is a taxing task. There are some who have run far from the siren call of pen to paper or finger to key. Though we run, the lure of the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. The power of words cannot be discounted. God spoke and existence came into existence. Salome said bring me to and it was brung. Martin Luther decreed and it came to pass. The constitution is merely words but we fight and die to protect the sanctity of it. It is a living breathing instrument of history and jurisprudence but its most humble beginnings was as a thought that one man had and shared with other men who understood and enjoined him in the vision of a document that would guide men to make decisions with regard to life and living.
The bible, believed by many to be the God ordained, God breathed word of life is still at it core words written by a writer. In the beginning was the Word. Those of us who have been entrusted with words have a solemn duty perhaps even a moral imperative to use them.

Please don’t mistake me for a grammarian or a punctuation specialist. I am not. Again there are the purists who find fault with this supposition. I am not run amok across the page like the proverbial bull in the china shop. I appreciate technical ability but the lack of a participle dangling precariously or a blatant misuse of the present pluperfect does not cause me to lose sleep. Perhaps if I took a moment to consult with EB White or that Strunk fellow, I would find that there are participles dangling all over this page and many of my plu’s are less than perfect. As it stands, there are times when I get confused and think that being a writer means that I can write anything. It only means that I will write anything. I understand that this sounds flagrantly contradictory. It may be the height of contradictoriness.

If the writer is slave to anything, it is the muse. The muse demands our allegiance and interrupts us like an oversexed strumpet to get our attention. I believe this of writer’s block. Writer’s block is what happens when we try to contradict the muse. The muse may say write the name of the first boy you ever dated 37 times. The intellectual within us says that is not noteworthy but the muse has her reasons. What do those 37 times conjure up? Where does your go that your pen is sure to follow. The muse is very crafty. You may think you have nothing to say but the muse will lead you to the story. It may be a circuitous trip but always trust the muse.

Getting to Me

I was missing, couldn't tell you where to find me. I got lost behind the dissappointments and the expectations. Suffocated by worry about my flaws when it is the flaws that make me great. Running from the implications of all the things I didn't become. Because I thought it mattered. In the grand scheme of things when all that is left is dust, it will not matter what you thought of me. All that will matter is what I did for me to make it better for all of us. So much time wasted being who I thought I should be. So much time wasted, getting to me.

Retrospect: The Muse of Circumstance

Inspiration has struck. My muse is my circumstances. Life brings with it, reverses. During times like these we can let pride get the best of us. We keep our selves secret, owing in part to shame and in part to pride. Shame because allowing people in would, in turn, allow people to see how bad it has become. It would mean peeling away the façade and allowing people to see the mess life had become both figuratively and literally. Even at those times when we feel that we are truly putting ourselves out there we are still only showing people a portion of who we are and what we want them to see. The niggling thought always persists: If they really knew me, would they still like me. If they really knew the idiosyncrasies and secret thoughts that make me who I am, would they understand?

The loss of relationship whether it be a love relationship or a friendship smarts all the more at these times. Yet it seems that often the underpinnings of the tenuous bonds of temporary friendship come undone at times like this. The why of it an ever present reminder of the turn's life can take. Who was at fault? Who was right? Who was wrong? Time shows us what is truly important as all of the questions fade into obscurity and only memory remains. Our perception is our inalienable right. Relationships are transitory. Change is the inevitability of life. It is the uncontrollable control that drives us forward. Whether we accept it or not has little to do with its inexorable workings in our lives. Our fortunes, loves, looks and ideals change whether we ordain it or not.

A Change Will Do You Good

"A change will do you good; I think a change would do you good."

Thank you, Sheryl Crow. I like to think this type of change is the carefully planned change of one completely in control of one's destiny. When I find someone like that I will see how that works out. Most of the time change is thrust upon us by circumstances and we don't get to plan how we will deal with it because, well we're too busy dealing with it. Someone said life comes at you fast and this may be the truest statement I've experienced. Not only does life come at you fast but it comes at you early and often. Expecting the unexpected is fast becoming America's new pastime. That is not to say that the unexpected is always the unwanted or better yet the unneeded. Many times we need to be wrenched from our seat of complacency. Sometimes it's just life's way of telling us. Hey you're gonna be dead a lot longer than you're going to be alive so get everything you can out of the living years. Either way, the unexpected is coming. I'm a practitioner of the law of attraction which tells us that we can plan our lives. Humor me for a minute while I circle back to my topic. My first few statements may seem to fly in the face of this but I've found that the mysterious workings of fate all coincide to give us what we have prayed for. The problem with this is that the course is not always smooth and the packaging not always pretty.

Losing everything and returning to square one often seems like the cruelest of ironies but really sometimes you have to start over. Sometimes you have to pare down to the essentials. There is nothing like losing everything to make you aware of what you really can live without. The list of what we need to live has not changed in millennia. Food, clothing and shelter, that's it. Not pretty clothes, not gourmet food and not a mansion. If you have an understanding partner, the clothing may be optional, unless you work. Employers are not real big on nude asses. Don't misunderstand me. I'm down for whatever material trappings life sends my way, but now I know I can survive whether I have them or not.

Many times losing feels like winning and winning feels like losing. The only way you find out which is which is buckling in and riding the wave and seeing where the beast coughs you up. Sometimes you'll acknowledge your true path and other times you'll chart a new course. Time in the belly of the beast definitely gives one perspective.

Object Lesson: Killer Whales Kill

**Thanks to Linda Ann Nickerson's Meme Express for prompting this.**

Shocking

We're an interesting bunch and what I mean by we, are people. We operate from a position of sovereignty, obviously with the expectation that everything in the world will get in line with our wishes. I believe in the power of belief to redefine our circumstances, but many times we try to extend this power to animals and people with less than great results. We domesticate animals and manipulate people, but often seem shocked when they act outside of the ways we have prescribed. However, in a world where the obvious ridiculousness of this stance often goes unnoticed, nature will rear it's head to represent. In just such a representation, an Orca at Sea World killed it's trainer while the audience looked on. The audience is just extraneous information, put there to amp up the shock value. I'm sure there are lengthy diatribes being written on both sides of this incident. Pro-animal rights folks and Anti-animal rights people see their chance to take a stand. However, that's not where I'm coming from.


Sure of our power

We are often so enamored by our own power that it never occurs to us, that the thing we have brought under our submission will become self aware. Now in the case of the Orca, he'd killed before which makes this all the more topical. Let this be a lesson. It's a lot harder to take the wildness out of something than you think. Whether, it's a lion, a tiger, a bear or that chick or dude you met at the Piggly Wiggly. Many times we can so domesticate something that it no longer recognizes it's own power. However,all someone or something needs is realize and acknowledge their own power and the game changes.

Respect

This life lesson isn't about fear but more about respect. Having a healthy respect for the innate power of people and things is a good idea. Because as much control as we think we have, that's as much control as we can lose when things go wrong and the consequences can be deadly. We love the people and animals in our lives but must understand that we never have full control of anyone but ourselves. Respect that.