Wide, but not so deep

These days, I'm looking around - just shopping -- as I think about where to go from here. We're between trips, and I'm catching on that I have developed a pattern. When I have something planned in my future, I tend to use the between-time to skim the surface of time instead of digging down into life and getting some real experience. Wide, but not deep.

Where do I go from here? Why does it matter? Where is here that I need to know where to go next?

Here is a major change in lifestyle from working to non-working. I have been officially re-retired since mid February, and now it is moving toward the middle of June. By traveling locally and internationally, I have avoided the proverbial next-step thinking until now. But it's time. This next trip is our last planned trip of the year!

Here are some potential next-step projects:

• Catch up on reading.


• Finish the bedspread quilt.


• Read the blogs of others and think about how I would respond.


• Concentrate on more Bible study.


• Enlarge my social network.


• Take a course.


• Do volunteer work.


• Continue to clean out accumulations of years.


• Sew for Erica.


• Do some art sewing.


• Knit.


• Embroidery.

More on writing

My very literary and talented friend Susan sent me a lovely note after my visit to her home last week. In it, she quotes E. B. White from a New Yorker piece entitled Estimating the Tax. I can't find the piece on the Internet, but here's a link to a little blurb about White: http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2006/11/eb-white-on-big-picture_30.html

Here's the quote Susan sent to me:

To a writer, almost everything in life seems a special problem and
virtually insolvable...

The whole process, actually, calls for so fine an adjustment of fact and
fancy, of hope and memory, that only a truly creative person is capable of
tackling it at all.

All I can add is, "ain't it the truth!" One's own writing is never good enough. I marvel at those who can write prose that sings, where every word counts and has its own story to tell. My friend Dan, to whom I will send a number of writing reference books in August, provided he lets me know where he is, falls victim to this writers' malady as he works his words, reworks them, and then works them again. He and I could spend two hours on a single paragraph when we had the luxury of time to do so.

Writing is a kind of music. If you read it aloud, which I believe is a must when you're writing for real publication, the writing needs to have melody and ryhthm. It needs to fit within itself and be one song. I am training myself to not be a writer, little by little. I am gathering the courage to delete, instead of read, the many writers listserv notes I receive during the day. No matter what delights the new holds, it's painful to say goodbye to the old. However, if one fails to move on, the journey is lost. I don't want to lose the journey. I want to travel the entire trip. There is still uncharted territory ahead for me. I want to experience it.

Writing is good

It's good to write about things, and it's easy not to write. I find that writing does many things for me.

Writing is a discussion with yourself. It's my theory that our fingers have a connection to the brain that is deeper than our conscious connection. All my life, when I am in deep trouble with myself, I've been able to pick up a pencil or pen (and now a word processor of sorts on my computer) and dump portions of my thoughts that I can't connect to when I'm just thinking. Sometimes, it leads me out of my trouble into a better experience.

Writing helps you remember things that you otherwise forget. It's probably because you are using another sense - the sense of touch - to record a memory. I not only have a better chance of remembering something I wrote about (this is a good study tool when you're taking tests, too), looking back at something you wrote is like looking back at a photograph. It helps you get to a place that otherwise you can't quite put a finger on.

Writing is a good analytical tool. You can see what you wrote, compare different views (your thoughts) about a single thing, and come to a better (or clearer) conclusion about a topic. You can use your fingers to trace what you wrote, to feel the difference between one idea and another.

Writing is a good thing for me. A person doesn't need to write well to use the power of writing to enrich a life. The idea of writing well is subjective, anyway. What's good writing to one will be bad writing to another. It's like beauty - all in the eye of the beholder.

Writing is tactile. Writing is a good way for many of us to enhance our experience of life. I must discipline myself to write. If I don't like what I write, I can always edit it! Write on!