Being a Writer

Silla, originally uploaded by boxersiciliano

This morning i read a horoscope that said what i could be and what i am good at...things like being sensitive and gregarious and excelling in things that are creative...like writing for example...it also said that I would be successful in many endeavors as long as I wanted to be. I think something about my Jupiter and Uranus or a Trine of some sort...i don't really know and it is sort of funny that in some ways we can base our whole existence on the moment we were born and where we were in regards to the power of the planets and the insane alignment of the stars above. I sometimes believe it and sometimes i do not, but this morning something resonated with me, i think the element of being good. Being good at being good..being good at being good to others and being good at being good to myself...being good. Is that different than being well? and doing things well? jeez...kind of like "People are finished, Turkey is done." Something my dad always used to remind me of at the dinner table. Ok, fine, then how does my life fit into the cosmic elements of being a writer...and doing it well and being good?

hmmm....well, here i sit today, writing and not really knowing what I will say or think except that I have somehow been inspired by the planets this morning, not really knowing why, but feeling stronger for it and almost absolutely powerful, like I could do anything, create anything, say anything, be anything, and that is where the trouble is sometimes for me. If I can be all those things, how does each day go by without feeling a bit overwhelmed with thte fact that there are so many things to do...that I want to do?  Is it a curse in a strange way?  How do I embrace that element of my life right now?  Can i actually do all of those things...I mean all the time together???  Like, photography, writing, music, bike racing, skiing, motorcycling, family time, love, coffee, travel, cook?  Ok...so that is the conundrum these days...

So today, i have chosen to be a writer...and a photographer.  Last night I was a musician, and a chef...oh and today i will most likely be a bike racer to, only for about 1 1/2 hours though.  The other day I even toyed with going to culinary school...to become a famous chef in a restaurant and create an alter ego...my name would be Luigi Calendesi and I hail from Sicily.  I do not talk much, but my food makes people fall in love and die. And I wear those silly black checkered pants and black clogs with brass buttons around the soles and black socks and often I can be found wearing a chef shirt of some kind, the one with the rolled up sleeves and a thermometer, which I carry at all times.  My shirt is never clean as it has the makings of a busy night in the kitchen and I often smell of Pancetta and wine and stinky cheese, but my 3 children love it and i make them homemade pizza with pretzels on top or goldfish if they want...my wife and i ride our bikes on the weekends and often tour the hills in europe when I travel there to meet with other famous chefs who can never quite figure out my strange accent...and we drink wine and our cheeks are often rosy, not from libations, but from life.  

I made pizza last night.

So today I am a writer...not a chef and my name is not Luigi, but maybe it will be Grey Pasqual McShay...that would be my pen name..."Hello Grey"....coffee?  "Yes, thank you" I would say as I visited my favorite small coffee shop to find my muse each day and kill my critic inside that tells me I am no good and shouldn't have any business being  a writer.  To the death I would fight that voice every day and i would kill him in many ways..ways that are gory and violent, like the last scene in "There Will be Blood"...with a wooden bowling pin to the head..or maybe soft like the passing of a dog on a metal table, where the last breathe is softly exhaled and the tongue slowly seeps out the side and the warmth slips away and the silence is deafening...or maybe I would hire a hit man to hunt him down and shoot him in the dark alley behind a live concert while he smokes and laughs and plots new ways to bring me down....I like coffee...alot...i think it may be my addiction in life.  Good thing too because i don't think heroine and I would mix well, but beans...oh beans...the sweet dark oily lovers that I would cross oceans and mountains for...how could I love them so much??  How is it that they love me so much?  

I worked at Starbucks and didn't drink coffee, but I remember the tingling feeling my fingers would have from handling the beans all day...the buzz. I used to be a coffee pusher to the rich, but I was a coffee Robinhood really...i used to take more than my fair share of the sweet bean and pass it around to my poor friends who could not really afford the 9.98 /pound cost for our sweet addiction...well, their addiction, which I am now a part of.  Where is my Bean Robinhood?  Why have you foresaken me?  Cream please.

So today I am writing and out comes things that are seemingly trivial, but guess what...being a writer is not glorious and easy...you have to spend time dancing and fighting and bleeding and laughing.  Otherwise, what is there to write about?  Laundry?  

well, actually, yes.   I like the smell of a freshly dried towel and the feel of a used Bounce on my fingers as I scrape the lint away from the trap and roll it into a small ball and feel the warmth of the glass on the window of the dryer and look outside at the day and wonder what it would take to be a medieval knight fighting in the Crusades with a sword that is taller than me....what did they do with dirty clothes?

Just enough cream to swim lightly and two scoops of thick heavy granulated brown raw sugar please.  I have work to do.

Love and Understanding