A Journey

DSC_0358.JPG, originally uploaded by boxersiciliano.

This morning it is raining and a man is coming to town. I read his book once about a dog and his love for that dog back when i was first arrived in Boulder...right before I hurt my knee. Ted Kerasote is his name and today he is coming to Muttropolis at 7 pm to talk about his book...Merle's Door. I again find myself fascinated not only with his story and my own life's reflection of the tangible relationship he had with his dog, but more importantly, i think he has proven that to be a writer is truly a gift to share and give back to others. I don't know his background and how he started writing and i may ask him today, but I am inspired to write because of him, because of the importance of sharing our experiences with those around us and how, without planning or knowing, we can give to others hope, understanding, compassion, humor, sadness, guilt, anger, recognition...all from a simple effort, really, of pen to paper, or now days for me, fingers to keyboard. I do look back on many old journals and wonder if I should mine them for stories, experiences and thoughts...I probably will, but for now I have been charged with writing every morning when I wake up without hearing the news, reading or talking, just to wake up a bit on the early side and write..as a discipline.

Discipline...now that is something I am quite good at during certain times. If i can make this writing practice a "physical" act as I do with my bike or the gym, as a way to make my mind powerful and limber and balanced, like my body, then it should be a bit easier...but writing...what will i write about? what will i say? what if I can't? what if no one understands? well, fine...it is not about that right now..it is about my process of "becoming a writer"...more and more...

I marvel at the process of writing, be it a sweeping epic or a self help book, or a biography. I don't really know how it works and sometimes when I read a book that speaks to me i think.."I could have written that, but how?" how does one write page after page and structure their thoughts and story? How does one do it? I am sure that there are classes and do's and dont's..but really, is it taught? Do we write what we know? Do we simply imagine? To this i have no answer yet, and maybe never will, but I think these days it is simply a matter of exercising the muscles in the mind and the firing synapses to the fingers...which in its own right is pretty wild...our mind is thinking and we are able to respond through our muscles and turn those thoughts into words through a mechanical surface and a pattern of action...i guess the one true class that actually helped me the most in all my years of school was my 8th grade typing class...yep...8th grade.

I remember my mom was always typing on an old brown two tone IBM Typewriter in the back nook of our Spanish castle that we grew up in. I often could depend on hearing that sound of the thwack thwack thwack ding whizz click click thwack thwack mostly early in the morning, late at night or sometimes in the odd moments of the middle of the day...typing away at her letters and stories and thoughts. The room was small with a small metal fold up desk and the makings of a bright white and flowing room you might find in an old chateau in France, with drapes, old lamps, one chair, baskets with flowers and stacks of paper..a place that always was there, waiting to be visited and waiting for the sounds of the writer who would command that wheel. I think that is where I may have tried my hand early on as a kid, having learned to type, however slowly, but wanting to imagine I could type as fast as my mom...The heavy keys and sound of the machine being on was a constant reminder that it was waiting for you to take charge. They should make that sound an option for the computer..the sound that a waiting typewriter makes when you turn it on, at least the electric ones in any case.

The journey of a writer is what i am fascinated with these days...and I am beginning that journey here and now. looking out of the window today into the rain and feeling cozy and ready to embark, as if I have set foot on a ship heading for the horizon and it is calm and beautiful, but deep down, you know that there will be long nights and storms and fear, but the sun will rise and the wind will blow and the sounds will carry you through...not unlike the tapping of the keys and whirring of the motor and the sound of the printer...not unlike the wind in our minds.


Love and Understanding.