The Quiet Moments
I am currently running about seven or eight days ahead of myself with my daily story writing. i go through cycles when I am ahead like this and when I am chasing my tail to get out a story to meet my daily morning deadline. Lately I have tended towards running ahead by as few as two or three days to a maximum of ten days. I don’t like to get too far ahead because then I am juggling the timing of different stories based on my perception of their timeliness versus generality. I am always cognizant of what I have on my upcoming schedule that might cause me to fall behind in my story writing, the most significant cause being travel and perhaps the next most being workload. When I sit down to write, which is usually either in the morning before my day must begin with a trip to the gym or a trip to Stretch-U in anticipation of a swim thereafter, or it is in the evening when I am sitting and watching a movie which I have most likely seen several times before. Given Kim’s more limited appetite for movies, I am often picking movies for her that I have seen and I know will not either contain excess violence and gore or such things as harm to animals. I try to start a new story directly following the finishing of another. I feel that keeps the momentum going by forcing me to set up the story format and perhaps produce a starting title, which always leads me into a story that may or may not be what I initially intended or expected. That process causes me to pause and think about titles that mean something to me in the moment. I am often drawn to comments I hear on the air, especially on the news, but sometimes in movie dialogue. Those catchphrases often lead to some of my best stories. Since I am generally not being purely journalistic in my writing, I find myself crafting “stories” which involve my history and experiences, current events and happenings in the world, either now or in history as I remember it.
This process puts me in a ponderous place for a few moments when I contemplate a new title to get me going. I try to spend a moment being sure that I have not previously written on that topic before. Sometimes that is as easy as doing a quick story search of the title. If I have written something similar before, it will appear with a similar title or at least one key word from my new title in a prior title. It is not a perfect review system and now that I have crossed over the 1,900 story mark, my memory for some incidental repetition only goes so far. But as I try to think through the relevance of my contemplated topics and the degree to which I have previously considered them, I end up having a reflective moment that I think of a quiet moment.
I have often spoken about the importance of being grateful for what we have in life and specifically for giving thanks in an outward and vocalized manner. It is not enough for me to love Kim and keep that thought to myself. I must and I do tell her how much I love her every day (sometimes during the day, but certainly every night before bed) as my way of telling the universe that I am grateful that it has allowed her to be in my life. The equivalent display of thanks for my physical surroundings here on this hilltop, which both Kim and I are very thankful to have as our place in retirement, comes in the morning when I am writing. I will either be sitting at my desk staring out to the north and west, admiring the distant mountain and ocean views, or I will be sitting in my place on the sofa in the living room where I can turn my head a few degrees in either direction and see the surrounding hills and ocean or, alternatively and more close up, the lushness of the succulent garden that surrounds our house. It is in my quiet moments that I stare out into these wondrous sights and feel most at peace. The magic of my living room perch is that I can from this one spot see both the distant and majestic views that inspire great thoughts of the future and the verdant garden with at least several dozen varieties of succulents that flourish in this wonderful climate and remind me of all the beauty of the world that we have in the here and now to enjoy.
I wonder sometimes whether others have similar spots for reflection or even if they allow themselves these indulgent meanderings of the mind, and if they do, are they prone to recording or expressing them as I do? I often think I am being obnoxious in thinking that my reality and perception of the world is worthy of anyone else’s moment of thought. When social media first came into vogue there were plenty of commentators that said they did not want to read people’s observations that they were sitting on their deck, yadda, yadda, yadda. I would like to think that my stories are more than that, but must also admit that on certain days I get lost in some personal form of navel contemplation like this very post. Then I remind myself that all storytelling and really almost all writing is nothing more than a way to give others a glimpse into our thoughts and very soul, and then I don’t feel so guilty. Yes, I want people that I know to understand that there is a depth to me that reflects actively and often about life and all the wonderful sides of it that present themselves to me. I also hope that by being as open as I am about my way of giving homage to these observations, may inspire others to do likewise and add value to their approach to life. There is no reliable way to determine where we stand on the spectrum of enlightenment. Its like taste and humor. We all think we have these attributes, but they are not a only relative to our surroundings and circumstances, but they are very personal and hard to confirm. People can tell you that you have a great sense of style or are very funny, but people rarely tell you that you have deep thoughts or that you have transcended the mundane and moved into the light in your thinking. It’s just not the sort of conversation we tend to have with one another.
I know that my pal Mike reads my blog on most days. He and I tend to talk about very practical and everyday things when we see each other. How did he do in his softball game? Did I get that new expert witness case or not? What are we each doing to improve our gardens or to get our daily dose of exercise? We don’t spend a lot of time plumbing the depths of one another’s souls, nor do I think we want to. And given that still waters often run deep, there is no telling what Mike is thinking about any given topic at any given moment. People often surprise you with the things that they contemplate on their own. People who paint or whittle or grow roses may use those outlets to tell the natural world their story with no need to put it into language that others need to directly comprehend. There are times when I wished that my medium was less obvious, but it is very hard to hide when you write and publish indiscriminately. That is my path and my vehicle and while I also garden and commit to other forms of expression, none of those offer me the obvious solace of the quiet moments I enjoy so much when I think before I write.