I’m glad it’s summer, and glad to have an occasional day to remember those other dreams - dreams outside of work, outside of family, outside of all the “shoulds” that run much of my life they way they do everyone’s. I’ve had a “bucket list” for a long time of things I want to do before I’m 80 or so — and I’ve been lucky to have been able to check a lot of those things off the list. But there’s one thing that’s been looming for a long time, and that is my writing – more specifically, The Story. If it becomes a novel, that would be great; but more than anything, The Story is for my grandchildren, and I’m going to start chapters online – probably by using another blog here on WordPress.
Writing is beginning to feel like another piece to the balance I’ve tried to put in my life these last few years. One of the pieces was to read good literature, good novels, again. I wasn’t getting enough intellectual stimulation – or intellectual rest, in one sense – through my work, even though my public relations career has always been both challenging and rewarding. I am a person in love with the language, and when I run across a writer who uses words in a way that mesmerizes me, I am transported – I am rested – I am renewed – I am refreshed. Along those lines, I’ve just finished reading “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” and am still floating in delight that this book exists. This book has inspired me, and after perhaps 40 or more years of saying “Someday, I will write,” I have started writing.
For my students and clients who have sometimes wondered where the words come from that I corral seemingly easily — they come from the inspiration of novels, or plays, of lyrics, of poems. Do not lose these things in your own life; or, if you’ve never had them, go get a recommendation for a book and start reading. You could do a lot worse than by starting with “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.”
